On Tuesday, the
Porter County Council held its review of the levy limits and circuit breaker
caps for each taxing unit in the county, making the recommendation that
local taxing units not exceed their maximum tax collections.
In recent years the
Council has had to review the complete budgets of the taxing units in the
county and give a non-binding recommendation, but state lawmakers passed a
new law that gives counties the ability to make recommendations on the
estimated maximum tax levies and also the tax cap impacts, said County
Auditor Vicki Urbanik.
Before the new law,
a public hearing by the Council was held for all the taxing unit budgets,
typically right before the Council started its first and second readings of
the proposed Porter County budget for the following year. This year the
public hearing will only be for the 2017 budgets for county government.
“There was a lot of
confusion by what a non-binding review meant. It didn’t seem to have a whole
lot of relevance,” Urbanik said as to why legislators decided to change the
law.
Additionally, the
Department of Local Government Finance is to provide each unit with its
estimated maximum levy and an estimate of the amount that the budget will be
reduced by tax caps.
The taxing units
can then attend the Council’s review of the levies and tax cap amounts to
address any matters. None came before the Council on Tuesday.
Council President
Dan Whitten, D-at large, said his recommendation would be what it has been
before, that the units don’t budget over their levies. “My recommendation is
don’t increase the property taxes,” Whitten said. “I would like for them to
follow our example.”
For Porter County
Government, the maximum levy estimate for 2017 is $40,591,222. Urbanik said
the state’s assessed value growth quotient will be 3.8 percent.
The tax cap impact
estimate is a $3.6 million reduction for County Government’s 2017 budget.
Urbanik believes that number is a not a conservative estimate. The estimate
for 2016 was $1.9 million.
The levy is used to
calculate tax rates. The levy is divided by a unit’s total net assessed
value to determine the tax rate. Because assessments are up in Porter
County, Urbanik says she thinks the rates will be lower for the fourth
consecutive year.
Urbanik provided
the Chesterton Tribune with the rest of the DLGF’s estimates for all
taxing units. Below are those pertaining to Duneland.
Maximum Levy
estimates
The maximum levy is
what each unit is allowed to collect in property taxes for the year.
Chesterton:
$5,596,265
Beverly Shores:
$479,034
Burns Harbor:
$1,968,723
Dune Acres:
$358,798
Porter: $2,450,043
Pines: $115,190
Jackson Twp.:
$110,623
Liberty Twp.:
$354,191
Pine Twp.: $114,168
Westchester Twp.:
$123,526
Duneland School
Corporation (for bus replacement and transportation budgets only: $4,868,246
Westchester Public
Library: $2,953,070
Tax cap reduction
estimates
The 2017 estimates
are given along with the 2016 in parentheses for comparison.
Chesterton:
-$1,174,397 (-$482,251)
Beverly Shores:
-$173,900 (-$16,658)
Burns Harbor:
-$3,104 (-$26)
Dune Acres:
-$22,960 (-$1,657)
Porter: -$449,910
(-$255,237)
Pines: -$5,330
(-$122)
Jackson Twp.: -$609
(-$375)
Liberty Twp.:
-$5,922 (-$2,428)
Pine Twp.: -$6,510
(-$690)
Westchester Twp.:
-$6,961 (-$3,112)
Duneland School
Corporation (for all school funds) -$1,774,154 (-$536,419)
Westchester Public
Library: -$240,996 (-$109,675)