Incumbent Assessor’s in St. John, North, Calumet, Ross, Hobart, and Center Townships will face the voters next Tuesday to confront their futures. Voters in these urban or semi urban townships of more than 15,000 parcels will decide whether the township assessor duties will continue to be to be performed by their respective elected township assessors, or will they revert to the county assessor as in 1008 other Indiana townships. This is truly the first step to the elimination of the antiquated township government system.
Affected incumbent assessors have begun their advertising spin, touting the unexcelled job they think they do for the taxpayers. Much of what is promoted is pure rhetoric; ignoring the facts that should be considered; and personalizing the choice to their townships. Many pray the public will be too ignorant to employ the facts. In general, this promotion of township assessors ignores the fact that this could be a one-time, forever decision; there is currently no provision to reconsider this issue in the future.
All Township assessors and their staffs are funded from the County budget, not a township’s. If they are grossly inefficient, they go to the county for a supplement. While a few rural county assessor’s have traditionally been very effective, their jobs are already gone. Some of their staff’s are assumed by the County Assessor to pick up his extra workload. This will also happen after the referendum for those townships voting against their township assessor.
Since all township assessor’s staffs are funded by the county it would seem appropriate that the decision will be county wide. The intelligent voters of St. John Township might choose to delete the very effective Hank Adams, while the less educated voters of Calumet Township might choose to retain Booker Blumenfeld, the least efficient assessor in Indiana. If this referendum were a county wide decision at least we would throw out the bad with the good.
Let’s review a few facts on township assessors:
Township # of staff
North 21
Calumet 32
St. John 16
Winfield 1 Full-time & 2 Part-time
Center 6
Winfield township (who now has no assessor) processed only 20 fewer assessment transactions than Calumet. Compare the staffing!
Center township now accounts for 18% (200M) of total Lake County Assessed value; St. John Township 40%. (this is an imperfect evaluation e.g.: Hammond’s assessed valuation went up 9% with one assessment {Horseshoe}).
Form 11’s are the “Annual adjustment of assessed evaluation”: they are the backbone of an assessor’s job. In 2006 the cost to prepare a form 11 in St. John Township was $6.80, while the cost in Calumet Township was $211.00.
Last year Republican Hank Adams (St. John Township) requested a supplement of $16,000 for additional postage for Form 11’s. Calumet Township requested $98,000 for overtime to do the same job. The County Council cut Hank’s request in half, while reducing Calumet Township’s by $10,000.
Each township assessor appoints a “Chief Deputy”, this is the unelected, certified, specialist who actually runs the assessor’s office. Ross township’s deputy makes half of what Calumet Township’s does.
If the aggregate reduction in assessor staff positions resulting from elimination of township assessors was a mere 25 positions the savings would be half a million dollars.
This decision is in your hands.