PROPERTY TAXES EXPLAINED

Learn from an experienced professional

- How the property tax process works
- What the parts of a property tax bill mean
- How assessed values are set
- When it makes sense to appeal your assessment
- How to tell if your property description is correct
- How to tell if your assessment is logical and reasonable
- How an assessed value can be successfully appealed

Key Speaker will be Joe Wszolek, President, Joseph Wszolek & Associates, Inc., Indiana Certified Residential Appraiser, Indiana Certified Level II Assessor-Appraiser, Indiana Certified Tax Representative (Real Property Assessment Appeal)

Bring your tax bill and record card (Property description) for help in appealing assessments. Appeal forms and info on how to appeal an assessment will be available.

DATE: Thursday, October 29
TIME: 6-9 PM
PLACE: Woodmar United Methodist Church, 7320 Northcote (Corner of Northcote and Southwestern)

HAMMOND SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT TO SPEAK AT NEXT TEAM HAMMOND MEETING

The next Team Hammond Taxpayers' Group meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at the Woodmar United Methodist Church, 7320 Northcote Avenue. Meet and greet will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the general meeting to follow at 7:00 p.m.

On the agenda is the new Hammond high school construction project. Key speaker will be Dr. Walter Watkins, superintendent of the Hammond school system. School board trustees will also attend and comment on the project.

Team Hammond meetings are open to the public.

DAN DERNULC OF THE LITTLE CALUMET RIVER BASIN COMMISSION TO SPEAK AT NEXT TEAM HAMMOND MEETING

The next Team Hammond meeting will be on Tuesday, September 22, 2009 at the Woodmar United Methodist Church, 7320 Northcote Avenue. Meet n' greet will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the general meeting to follow at 7:00 p.m.

Guest speaker for the evening will be Dan Dernulc of the Little Calumet River Basin Commission. He will speak on the Little Calumet River flood control project and its current status.

Anyone residing in Lake County is invited to attend and bring your questions about the project. Feel free to invite your friends and neighbors especially those who have been impacted by the Little Cal flooding.

LAKE COUNTY COUNCIL PRESIDENT TO SPEAK AT TEAM HAMMOND MEETING

Lake County Council President Larry Blanchard (R-Crown Point) will be the featured guest speaker at the next Team Hammond Taxpayers' Group meeting on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at the Woodmar United Methodist Church, 7320 Northcote Avenue in Hammond. Meet and greet will begin at 6:30 p.m. with the general meeting to follow at 7:00 p.m.

County Council President Blanchard will speak on all issues related to the county: upcoming budget talks, cost cutting, proposed food and beverage tax and county option income tax. The meeting will be an open discussion, and Mr. Blanchard will answer questions from the floor.

Team Hammond meetings are open to everyone who is interested in good government and property tax reform. You do not have to be a Hammond resident to attend. Bring a friend or a neighbor to the meeting and become an informed citizen on the workings of county government.

SUPPORT TAXPAYER FRIENDLY SPECIAL SESSION BUDGET

The next state budget passed by the Indiana General Assembly will be Taxpayer Friendly if it (1) provides sufficient resources for good government AND (2) protects Hoosier working families from state and local tax increases.

Two starkly different state budgets have been proposed in the current special session of the General Assembly - a two-year budget by the Indiana Senate under the leadership of President Protempore David Long that follows the guidelines of Governor Mitch Daniels, and one-year budget by the Indiana House as directed by Speaker B. Patrick Bauer. A spreadsheet analysis of each budget can be found online at http://www.finplaneducation.net/senatehouse_ssb_0911.htm.

Providing sufficient resources for good government is difficult during these challenging economic times - the nation's longest recession since the Great Depression. To help replace declining revenues, both the Senate and House budgets use (or intend to use) about $2.7 billion of federal stimulus funds for various education, infrastructure, Medicaid, and transportation spending initiatives. The use of these federal stimulus dollars is acceptable in the present uncertain economic environment IF tax increases do not become necessary to support recurring expenses that will now be covered by the non-recurring federal stimulus funds.

The Watchdog Indiana rule-of-thumb is that a tax increase in a subsequent budget can be avoided if all the state’s reserve funds on June 30 of the last budget year total at least 50 percent more than any structural deficit. A structural deficit is created when recurring budget spending is supported by non-recurring revenues - when appropriations that repeat year-after-year are not fully supported by current revenues, but rely on non-recurring revenues such as federal stimulus funds and reserve funds.

The House budget is Taxpayer UNfriendly because on June 30, 2010, the alarmingly high structural deficit of $1.3797 billion is fully half a billion dollars more than the state's total reserves of $877.8 million. There is little chance that revenue collections in the 2011 fiscal year will recover sufficiently to cover the structural deficit. Even though there will be an additional $289.2 million in Medicaid federal stimulus funds available for the 2011 fiscal year, a House budget structural deficit that is half a billion dollars more than the state's reserves WILL result in a 2011 tax increase.

The Senate budget is much more Taxpayer Friendly than the House Budget because on June 30, 2011, the Senate budget has a reserve funds balance of $1.0036 billion, which is 36 percent MORE than the structural deficit of $740.3 million. If revenue collections from current tax sources do not increase in line with historical levels, the state's reserves together with spending discretion by the Governor can be used to avoid a tax increase after 2011.

The K-12 education provisions in the Senate budget are Taxpayer Friendly. The Senate budget provides a spending increase for every student, and those school districts with increasing enrollments will get more state money while school districts with declining numbers of students will receive less state funding. Current law phases out per student state funding for school districts with declining enrollments over a five-year period, and phases in over five years the per student funding for school districts with increasing enrollments. Governor Daniels proposed that the five-year per student phase-outs and phase-ins be eliminated. Because some school expenses continue in school districts with declining enrollments, the Senate budget properly provides a compromise three-year period of per student phase-outs and phase-ins.

The K-12 education provisions in the House budget are Taxpayer UNfriendly. The House budget unwisely gives every school district more state funding, even those school districts with declining enrollments. The House budget reflects a philosophy that it is improper for K-12 teachers to protect their jobs by foregoing pay increases during this historic economic recession. Other government employees have had their pay frozen at a time when so many Hoosiers are experiencing income reductions and job losses. The average K-12 teacher in Indiana has a $49,569 salary with good benefits, while the median income for all the members of a Hoosier working family is $47,074. Indiana has the seventh highest teacher salaries in the nation when adjusted for cost of living. Teachers will hardly suffer if they miss one pay increase to help protect the funding of their K-12 school districts.

The Senate budget is also Taxpayer Friendly because it covers both the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. A two-year budget provides the fiscal discipline needed to help protect Hoosier working families from the unneeded tax increases that single-interest lobbyists would demand each year if one-year budgets were unwisely adopted.

The House budget is Taxpayer UNfriendly because it covers the 2010 fiscal year only.

Some additional noteworthy Taxpayer Friendly and Taxpayer UNfriendly provisions in the Senate and House budgets are listed below (under my name). It must be noted that the long list of Taxpayer UNfriendly provisions in the House budget favors tax spenders and developers at the expense of those who pay taxes.

The same Bauer Obstruction Team that is blocking passage of the constitutional property tax caps in Senate Joint Resolution 1 is trying to use the House budget to set up a tax increase on Hoosier working families during the midst of a prolonged recession.

The bottom line is that a special session YES vote for the Senate budget is Taxpayer Friendly, while a special session NO vote against the Senate budget is Taxpayer UNfriendly.

Please ACT NOW and let your State Senator and State Representative know that you expect them to vote for the Taxpayer Friendly Senate budget! Contact information for your State Senator and State Representative public servants can be found at http://www.finplaneducation.net/general_assembly_ratings.htm.

Watchdog Indiana calls on Senator Long to improve the Senate budget further by reducing the use of the Tuition Reserve Fund in the 2010 fiscal year from $305 million to $231 million and in the 2011 fiscal year from $305 million to $262 million. Taking this action, together with eliminating the $74 million transfer from the General Fund to the Tuition Reserve Fund in the 2010 fiscal year and reducing K-12 spending by $43 million in the 2011 fiscal year, will enable the state’s reserve funds of $1.0466 billion on June 30, 2011, to be a Taxpayer Friendly 50 percent more than the structural deficit of $697.3 million. If the Bauer Obstruction Team wants the use of the Tuition Reserve Fund returned to $305 million in both the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years, insist that they allow a vote in the House on the Taxpayer Friendly constitutional property tax caps in Senate Joint Resolution 1.

From Aaron Smith at Watchdog Indiana

STATE SENATOR SUE LANDSKE TO SPEAK AT TEAM HAMMOND MEETING

The next Team Hammond general meeting will be on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at the Woodmar United Methodist Church, 7320 Northcote Avenue in Woodmar. Meet and greet begins at 6:30 p.m. with the general meeting to follow at 7:00 p.m.

Guest speaker for the evening will be State Senator Sue Landske (District 6). Senator Landske will speak on topics pertaining to state government including legislation, property taxes, and the state budget. The evening's format will be an open discussion, and Senator Landske will answer questions from the audience.

Bring a friend or neighbor to the meeting, and most of all, bring questions to ask Senator Landske.

AS CRISIS UNFOLDS, A DANIELS-BAUER SHOWDOWN

By BRIAN A. HOWEY

INDIANAPOLIS - There sat the serene House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer at his desk before the Statehouse press corps last Thursday and a Mitch Daniels bobble head doll. Bauer tapped it and Gov. Daniels’ plaster head bobbed up and down. “The governor is here with us and he agrees with me almost all the time,” the Speaker said as laughter filled his small office.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Daniels and Bauer are worlds apart when it comes to how Indiana should be governed.

It feeds into the question of who the most powerful person in the Statehouse really is: a constitutionally weak governor seeking to radically rebuild a backwater state, or a powerful Speaker who is the bulwark for an anemic status quo, and who is motivated only by the maintenance of his own elevated political station?

When the deal-making reaches true intensity next week, will Bauer, the stasist defender whose caucus has made a mockery of just about every progressive piece of legislation that has passed through its doors, win this battle and lose the war? For Daniels, who entered this session off a landslide victory and leaves it with near 70 percent approval, his legacy is at stake. His governorship will not be deemed successful unless he can achieve profound government and education restructuring.

The backdrop to this is the potential General Motors and Chrysler bankruptcies and liquidations, coupled with a steel industry collapse, whose production is the lowest since the Great Depression. There have also been two township trustee criminal convictions this past week.

Here are the key issues that must be determined by April 29:

The budget: This is the governor’s top priority and at this writing, he is looking at a stinker. It is loaded with Obama stimulus funds he warned Bauer and Senate Appropriations Chairman Luke Kenley not to use. Daniels wants a two-year budget that is truly balanced. Bauer wants a one-year budget given the economic crisis, but the governor has no stomach for dealing with it again next year.

State revenue forecasters predict Indiana will take in $690 million less over the next two years than last December’s estimate. That doesn’t include a Chrysler liquidation that could spread to suppliers, creating a belt of Indiana counties in Northern Indiana facing jobless rates between 15 and 20 percent. A question with no answer is what happens to those numbers with an automotive/steel collapse? Kenley’s foundation is an 8 percent budget cut plus using $2 billion in federal stimulus funds to increase education spending between 1 and 2 percent.

Unemployment Insurance: This is the issue in HB1379 most likely to create the need for a special session. A House Democrat plan put forth on Monday would saddle Hoosier employers with $1 billion to fix the shortfall, compared to the $328 million in the Senate bill, which would include some cuts to beneficiaries. This is one of those issues that got kicked down the road and now a solution must be found in crisis.

Asked how many Hoosier companies are teetering financially, Indiana Manufacturers Association President Pat Kiely answered, “There is no data available to determine how many Indiana manufacturers are on the brink, but we do know anyone related to autos, RVs and housing are in the worst positions.”

A look at Department of Workforce Development notices as of Wednesday reveal 5,527 jobs that will be lost between now and the end of June, which wouldn’t include 6,000 Chrysler jobs and related suppliers. “Passing a $1 billion tax increase as called for in the House Democrat conference committee report is clearly insane and for bargaining purposes,” Kiely said.

“Probably the right question to ask is how many employees will have to lose their jobs in every sector to pay for the tax? Employees will be impacted more than companies in most cases, which makes this tactic hard to understand and even harder to understand is why we continue to play political games with a subject that needs repairs and not rhetoric with one week left,” Kiely noted.

There is persistent speculation that Bauer is angling to blow up the UI bill and let the Obama administration deal with it. How does the idea of Washington running this sensitive fund strike you?

Education: I once viewed this as a key 11th-hour bargaining chip. Daniels might get his balanced budget or some Kernan-Shepard reforms in exchange for more education funding. Our sense at this writing is that the jobs trust issue is overshadowing the issue of increased education funding. Democrats are concerned that poorer school districts are being shorted by the Republican budget.

Kernan-Shepard: The miscalculation may have been Bauer and Senate Minority Leader Vi Simpson’s decision to not choose even a few of the 27 Kernan-Shepard recommendations for passage. The complete dismissal of all Kernan-Shepard reforms sets up a dramatic political showdown for House races in 2010 that will almost certainly be played out in places like Kokomo, Indianapolis, Terre Haute, Rising Sun, Marion and Pendleton, some of which will be experiencing titanic job losses. Imagine a campaign featuring a direct contrast between Daniels and Bauer. It’s coming.

My prediction? Just as we saw during the severe recession of 1982, a special session is probably likely sometime this year once we finally understand the full implications of the auto and steel crisis.

The columnist is publisher of www.howeypolitics.com.