by CHRIS MEYERS
Staff writer

Post & Mail photo/Chris Meyers

Gov. Mitch Daniels said at Wednesday’s Whitley County Lincoln Day Dinner that he is “very optimistic” about getting Indiana’s property tax reform finished in the near future.
He said a “flawed system” has led to many Indiana residents on fixed incomes grappling for ways to cope with the high increase in property taxes and the problem needs fixed.
“A government committed to freedom should never take a dollar from a free citizen,” he said.
Daniels said he wants a cap on taxes for property owned, and that the state is trying to find ways to protect taxpayers from such large increases as they’ve recently seen.
A bill recently passed by the Indiana House would cap homeowners’ tax bills at 1 percent of their home’s assessed value beginning in 2009, with 2 percent limits on rental property and 3 percent caps on business property. The Senate has passed a bill that would phase those caps in by 2010.
“We’re aiming at the biggest tax cut in the state’s history,” Daniels said.
Citing past initiatives that he said helped save Indiana residents tax money, the contracting with a private vendor to provide meals to all Indiana Department of Corrections inmates at a price 43 cents less than the earlier method, Daniels said that was one example of how to offer services at lower costs.
The lease of the toll road was also listed as a new and different approach to governing that could get more money into the Indiana budget.
Another issue Daniels and his administration are trying to get approval on to start is the I-69 corridor that would extend the highway southwest from Indianapolis.
Early plans of the project have the highway coming into Laredo, Texas with three crossings into Mexico.
Daniels said he is trying to make Indiana’s economy “the best economy it can be” and that being connected with so many other states by the proposed highway would be a step in the right direction.
A sign that Indiana is moving in the right direction to keep its workforce strong is that the state has an unemployment rate lower than the national average, Daniels said.
Indiana’s most recent unemployment rate was 4.4 percent, compared with 4.9 percent nationally, according to the United States Department of Labor.
As Daniels closed his comments for the night, he spoke briefly about education and the need for funding that goes directly to students.
“We need to move more dollars into the classrooms in this state,” he said, adding that smaller schools with smaller classrooms would help Indiana students with their educational needs.