Voice of the People

I am sure that many of our legislators understand that the “property tax crisis” was manufactured in Indianapolis, and not by local governments, whose levies (the total amount of tax a local taxing unit can collect) has been frozen since 1972 rising less than 5 percent each year, which increase would be funded by a modest amount of annual assessment growth which growth would serve to flatten the tax rate growth to less than 5 percent. Many of those in the current legislative leadership, including Senator Luke Kenley, chairman of the Senate Tax Fiscal Policy Committee, and Bill Crawford, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, were present for the first meeting of the of the Commission on State Tax and Financing Policy chaired by Senator Kenley on July 23, 2007 when Dr. Larry DeBoer, Professor of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University, explained that three state policies are calculated to be responsible for the bulk of the alleged average 24 percent increase in property tax bills. To wit:

1. Elimination of inventory tax in 51 counties, plus 4 percent;

2, Trending, plus 10 percent: and

3. Reaching the two billion cap for state property tax relief, plus 4 percent.

Instead of working on solutions applicable to the root problems created in Indianapolis, Governor Daniels chose to take advantage of the “crisis” Indianapolis manufactured to implement an agenda of consolidating power in Indianapolis, which agenda was awaiting the arrival of a “crisis” See the book, The Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein (Governor Daniels is mentioned on page 295.)

I have seen local governments struggle within the constraints that have existed since 1972 to continue to meet local needs and the torrent of unfunded mandates from the state and federal governments. Let’s scrap House Bill 1001 in its entirety and deal with the issues that Professor DeBoer identified as originating in Indianapolis rather than from mythical local government excesses.

Terry K. Hiestand

Posted 3/10/2008