TAXES, BUDGET CUTS & LAKE COUNTY

The Legislative Services Agency projects that the 2009 Lake County Government General Fund must be 10.5 Million less than 2008. And since 1998 there has been an 83% increase in property taxes to defray the cost of county government. This went for increases in the number of employees, employee benefits, and inflation. Each month, after the budget, additional funding is requested.

In 2007 the Lake County Government Tax Levy Apportionment amounted to $127,685,000.

Here's a breakdown of where the money goes:

Administration-6.28% $ 8,020,000
State Regulated-6.06% $ 7,740,000
Parks-5.87% $ 7,500,000
Reassessment-Assessors-5.43% $ 6,930,000
Infrastructure-3.47% $ 4,425,000
Criminal Justice-72.89% $93,070,000

Almost 73% of the county's budget goes to the Criminal Justice Departments which include the Sheriff, Prosecutor, Clerk and Courts. Full-time employees in those departments have increased from 30.89% in 1970 to 67.97% in 2003; an increase of 100%. Since the Criminal Justice Departments make up over 70% of the county's budget, these departments can afford to make larger cuts in their budgets.

The county must make a 15% reduction in its general fund in 2009. It's no longer if the county wants to, it's they have to. Elected officials and department heads can no longer submit unrealistic budgets. They must make concrete cuts as well as provide a plan showing where these cost reductions are to be made. Christine Cid, President of the Lake County Council, has already said if elected officials and department heads do not make reductions in their budgets, the county council will do it for them.

The County Finance Committee is not advocating a LOIT (local option income tax). By achieving an overall 15% reduction in the county's general fund, the budget shortfall can be eliminated.

Members of the County Finance Committee are:
Larry Blanchard
Ted Bilski
Christine Cid
Roosevelt Allen
Peggy Holinga-Katona
John Petalas

Contact them and let them know you support fiscal responsibility on the county's part.

VOTE "YES" TO ELIMINATE TOWNSHIP ASSESSORS

Voters in 43 townships spread across 22 counties willdecide in a Nov. 4 referendum if they want to shift assessment duties from their township assessors to their respective county assessors.

The ballot question reads:

Should the assessing duties of the elected townshipassessor in the township be transferred to the county assessor?

MySmartgov.org says “yes,” and urges you to vote “yes”Nov. 4.

Until recently, property in Indiana was assessed by1,008 township assessors in 1,008 different ways. Some assessors’ work may have been impeccable, but the taxpayers in their townships still may have been paying more than their fair share of taxes because of the less competent job by an assessor down the road.

In fact, a 2005 study by the Indiana Fiscal Policy Institute found that 80 percent of the townships did not meet international standards for uniformity. The assessments were well outside the accepted error rate of plus or minus 15 percent – that is, international standards say it is acceptable for a $100,000 house to be assessed anywhere from $85,000 to $115,000.

The error rate in Indiana was 35 percent. In other words, houses that would sell for $100,000 were assessed for tax purposes anywhere from $65,000 to $135,000.

A more recent sampling compared two houses across the street from each other. House A sold in July 2006 for $101,000. House B sold four months later, in November 2006, for $99,900 -- $1,100 less. Yet 2006 taxes, payable in 2007, on House A were $1,467, while those on House B were $2,222 – 51 percent higher. Still another house in the same township sold for $102,000 in May 2006 and was taxed that year, payable in 2007, at $1,166 a year – a 91 percent discount compared to taxes on House B.

The institute’s study – like so many before –illuminated problems that leaders across Indiana have known for years existed. Their questions about the number of assessors – then called “listers” – almost as soon as the system was devised nearly 200 years ago. And there have been question and studies and reform efforts since then.

Still, not much changed.

In spring 2007, Gov. Mitch Daniels asked a group of leaders from across the state to study the issue. The Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform, led by former Gov. Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randall Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court, issued a report in December 2007 that advanced 27 specific recommendations for streamlining local government. One recommendation was to shift assessing duties from thetownships to the counties.

The 2008 General Assembly enacted several reforms recommended by the Kernan-Shepard Commission, as it came to be known. Among other things, lawmakers shifted assessing duties in 965 townships to their respective counties. That law went into effect July 1,2008.

But the legislature decided that voters in the largest townships – those with 15,000 or more parcels of property – should decide the issue for themselves in a referendum that would be held in concert with the Nov.4 election.

MySmartgov.org is organizing a grass-roots effort to persuade voters to vote “yes” on the township assessors’ ballot question. After Nov. 4, the organization will continue its drive to find individual Hoosiers and civic organizations who are interested in common-sense government and who will urge their legislators to enact the rest of the Kernan-Shepard recommendations.

Did You Know?

Property taxpayers in Allen, Vanderburgh, and Vigo counties filed more appeals to their assessments in 2007 than in 2003, after the first market value reassessment. Taxpayers filed 72% more. If the assessment quality is improving, why are there more and not fewer appeals?

THE TOWNSHIP ASSESSORS' REFERENDUM VOTE

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.

GOVERNOR APPOINTS THREE MEMBERS TO DISTRESSED UNIT APPEALS BOARD

Governor Mitch Daniels appointed three members to the newly created Distressed Unit Appeals Board. The three members are from the South Bend area, Warsaw and Kokomo.

The Distressed Unit Appeals Board will be made up of nine members and will ultimately decide how much spending cities, towns, and townships will need to cut from their budgets to be in compliance with the new state law capping property taxes (House Bill 1001).

There is still the possibility a representative from Northwest Indiana could be appointed to the board and would hear appeals from governmental units in Lake County.

We have a great suggestion for the Governor if he is looking for an appointment from Northwest Indiana.

George Janiec from Team Hammond Taxpayers' Group would be an excellent addition to the Distressed Unit Appeals Board.He would not be a rubberstamp, he would honestly and fairly look at the appeals, and he would make the right decisions which would benefit the taxpayers and not the entrenched politicians of Lake County.

PROPOSAL WOULD ELIMINATE MOST INDIANA PROPERTY TAXES

State lawmakers want to raise revenue by taxing more services
By Tim Evans, Indy Star

Indiana could eliminate property taxes for homeowners and cut the state sales tax rate by applying the sales tax to more services, two state senators told a legislative commission Wednesday.

The plan laid out by Sens. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, and Brent Waltz, R-Greenwood, was among about a half-dozen proposals presented to the Commission on State Tax and Financing Policy and was the only suggestion that seemed to resonate with the panel.

Waltz said the plan, a refined version of a proposal the senators offered during the 2008 legislative session, was based on sales tax data that lawmakers didn't have earlier in the year, when he and Young offered several options for replacing homestead property taxes.

State Rep. Peggy Welch, D-Bloomington, who chairs the summer study commission, said she does not expect the panel to recommend any legislative action on tax reform next year.

"We are more of a receptacle for information, a place that brings it all together," she said.

Even Waltz said he is not ready to advocate for any particular plan for replacing property taxes. He said his role in bringing the sales tax plan before the commission was to show there are feasible funding alternatives and to encourage discussion about the options available to lawmakers.

Young said he plans to introduce a bill in the 2009 session that would eliminate property taxes on owner-occupied homes by expanding the sales tax, but he will leave it up to lawmakers to decide what services should be taxed.

The revised plan would replace the $2.2 billion generated each year by taxes assessed on owner-occupied homes by expanding the sales tax base, Young said. He said some services, such as medical and legal bills, along with unprepared foods, likely would remain exempt from the sales tax. But dozens of other services would be taxed. Services taxed now include cable and satellite television services, utilities and some phone services.

With the broader tax base, Young said, the state could reduce the sales tax rate from 7 percent to 5.5 percent. Lawmakers raised the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent this year as part of the property tax relief package approved by the General Assembly.

State Rep. Bill Crawford, D-Indianapolis, who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, called the plan a "concept worthy of further deliberation."

State Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, who was a driving force behind legislation enacted this year that cut residential property taxes, said he supported expanding the sales tax to cover many new services.

But, Kenley said, he did not pursue that option this year because expanding the sales tax would be "a hard sell" and he didn't want to derail immediate tax relief.

Eight states tax fewer than the 23 categories of services out of 160 that are subject to the Indiana sales tax, Young said, and businesses would likely see some savings with the overall sales tax rate falling.

"It may not have the devastating effect some people predict," Young explained.

From the Indy Star
Thursday, September 11, 2008

ELIMINATE PROPERTY TAXES: A VERY GOOD INDIANA BLOG

Kudos to Tim Wesco who writes the Eliminate Property Taxes blog. Last year he picked up an article quoting our Governor as saying he believes property tax repeal deserves a very serious look. We hope he will pick up and continue the blog this year.

Please spread the word about the following news:

On September 10th a group of legislators are meeting with different property tax repeal citizen leaders to discuss how repeal can happen. Representative Peggy Welch of Bloomington is heading the committee.

Represenatives from HFFT, StopIndiana.com and Advance America will be there. The work of two different Indiana economists will be closely examined. Everyone is in agreement that the only answer which is fair to all is repeal.

It is up to us to keep pressure on our legislators. Now is the time to write to your state senator and your state representative to tell them that you expect them to first CUT SPENDING and second find a path to make property tax repeal a reality. Tell our state legislators that tweeking an already broken system is not good enough and that the ONLY long lasting solution is property tax repeal. And while you are at it, remind them that come the next election they can have citizens dancing in joy or mad as hell. Be sure to emphasize that you and everyone you know is watching the tax repeal issue very closely. And there is no more REGRESSIVE tax than property tax. WHO IS MY LEGISLATOR?

We hear that just one of the two new Indiana casinos opened in July 2008 is bringing in $6 million to $13 million per day and that the state gets 50% of the revenues. This is new revenue that just started to roll in. We also know that there are more than 150 different taxes and fees in Indiana. With all that taxation going on, surely our state has enough backbone to give citizens the opportunity for true homeownership without the fear of the government taking your house one day due to taxation outside of your control. There is another word for what they do now. Legalized extortion.

From Hoosiers for Fair Taxation

ECO-FAIL: GIANT $6 MILLION FOAM STATUE OF LIBERTY A BIG POLLUTING MESS

Perhaps it’s a fitting tribute to a country that wore the ‘Biggest Polluter’ crown for so long: a 130-foot, 50,000-lb replica of the Statue of Liberty, made entirely of foam and sprayed-on plastic. The company that commissioned the statue, however, wasn’t trying to be ironic or make a point. They really thought it was a good idea to construct this thing – which is only 13 feet

shorter than the original Statue of Liberty – made up of what the Sierra Club calls ‘the ultimate waste product’.

YTB (Your Travel Biz) has commissioned the Beryl Martin Company of northwest Indiana to create the statue for YTB’s travel convention, held in August 2008 in St. Louis. See the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaA3IIrLtWc&eurl=http://earthfirst.com/eco-fail-giant-6m-foam-statue-of-liberty-a-big-polluting-mess/

Styrofoam, of course, is one of the worst substances ever created in terms of its effect on the environment. It’s not biodegradable, and it takes up massive amounts of space in landfills.

So, what’s going to happen to this polluting monster of a sculpture after the YTB is done with it? It’ll end up in the trash. YTB is donating it to a community to stand as ‘a memorial to fallen soldiers’, but it won’t stay completely intact for long. What do you think the community is going to do with it when it starts deteriorating?

Let’s run down the environment-killing aspects of this very stupid idea:

• It’s made of styrofoam.
• It's coated in plastic.
• It will take 48 semi trucks to move it from northwest Indiana to St. Louis, Missouri in August. That’s a lot of gas and auto exhaust.
• Despite the plastic coating, it won’t be long before this thing starts falling apart and raining styrofoam bits all over the place.
• It cost $6 million to make.
  

The unveiling of YTB’s giant statue of liberty is meant to get them plenty of publicity before their convention. Their goal is to be the world’s biggest travel company by 2011. Let’s give them negative publicity instead: YTB is now on our radar as a foe of the environment. They’ve already got a bad rep for being a rip-off pyramid scheme, so it’s not like many people will be surprised.

From earthfirst.com August 9, 2008