State Sen. Gary Dillon, R-Columbia City, speaks with local government officials after a public meeting Saturday morning. Most of the discussion concerned property taxes. Clockwise from left are county auditor Linda Gerig, Dillon, county councilman Tom Western, county commissioner Mike Schrader, county commissioner Tom Rethlake, county councilman John Barrett and county councilman Bill Overdeer.

Post & Mail photo/TJ Hemlinger

By TJ HEMLINGER
Staff writer

    Property taxes took center stage at a meeting of state legislators sponsored by the Columbia City Area Chamber of Commerce Saturday morning.
    State Sen. Gary Dillon, along with state Rep. Dan Leonard and state Rep. Matt Bell, addressed a crowd of several dozen at Parkview Whitley Hospital in a wide-ranging, two-hour session.
    There is a bill that has been introduced in the House that would place permanent limits on property taxes and deliver $1.95 in tax cuts for every $1 in tax increases. It also would deliver nearly $900 million in total tax cuts, the largest tax cut in Indiana history.
    The bill would cut property taxes by 39 percent for homesteads in 2009, 27 percent for rental, 15 percent for business and 21 percent for personal property.
    Leonard, who represents District 50 and sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, spoke in favor of eliminating the township trustee assessors and making assessing the responsibility of one county assessor.
    “It would make a uniform (method) of assessment,” he said. “We have approximately 1,100 assessors in the state.”
    He would add about 35 percent to the homestead exemption and reduce the property tax bills by about 40 percent. The school general fund would be paid by the state, as would child welfare bills.
    To pay for it, there would be a one cent increase in the sales tax.
    “The governor (Mitch Daniels) is trying to get the state totally out of the property tax business,” Leonard said. “The local property tax pays about 15 percent of the school general fund, and the rest is paid by the state. The governor would like to take over school funding.”
    Another reform Leonard supports would require a referendum on major school building projects of more than $10 million.
    “Forty percent of the growth in property taxes has been school construction,” Leonard said. “There are ways to build schools that are not that expensive. The current remonstrance puts the burden of proof of the taxpayers.”
    He said later in the meeting that the proposed referendum would not have an impact on the effort to build a new Columbia City High School, since that project has already started.
    Bell, who represents House District 83, which includes Churubusco, said proposed changes are more important than at any time in the past 35 years.
    “There would be a dramatic shift,” he said. “Changes of that magnitude require vital communication.”
    The state’s biennial budget is $6.3 billion, and he said that could grow to $6.9 billion.
    “We want property tax relief that is bold, immediate and permanent,” Bell said.
    Moving assessing to the county level would help, he said. He also agrees that if the state administers the program for child welfare, it should be responsible for funding it.
    “We recognize that people across the state are angry, and rightfully so. We have to balance property, sales and income taxes. I haven’t seen a proposal that would eliminate property taxes, although it’s a laudable goal.”
    Dillon, in turn, said that 75 percent to 80 percent of the people want “total repeal” of property taxes.
    “It’s way too soon to say what’s going to happen in the long run (at the state legislature),” he said. “A property tax relief bill will be put together at the end” of the session.
    As for the move to eliminate township assessors, Bell said it came from the Kernan-Shepard Committee and was not a legislature proposal.
    “Per capita, Indiana has the third-highest number of elected officials in the country,” Bell said. “It proposes some pretty drastic changes, and it’s not fair to the people of Indiana to (vote on it) in three weeks.”
    Dillon said, “You need to be careful when you take things away from the voters of Indiana.”