Treasurer aims to send property taxes by June 1-WEB ONLY

Marion County Treasurer Michael Rodman is scheduled to deliver an
update today on distribution of long-delayed local property-tax bills
worth a combined $1 billion. He now expects to put the bills in the
mail by June 1.

Rodman, a Democrat, will make his presentation to the City-County
Council’s Administration and Finance Committee at 5:30 p.m. Local
officials have repeatedly delayed final 2007 property-tax bills as
they’ve scrambled to deal with a $1.85 million countywide property
reassessment Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ordered in July 2007.

Daniels argued Marion County had consistently undervalued its
commercial and industrial properties, leading those parcels’ owners to
pay unfairly low property taxes.

Many local business owners weren’t happy with the reassessment’s
results, complaining they don’t reflect the accurate market value of
their properties.

Marion County has 22,557 business parcels. Commercial and industrial
property owners in Marion County subsequently filed 6,503 appeals,
which are now slowly being processed. Marion County also has 12,977
residential property-assessment appeals on file. That’s about 4 percent
of the county’s homes.

Rodman said his office now expects to send its final 2007 property tax
bills to taxpayers at the start of June. Once the bills are received,
property owners will have 30 days to pay them. Rodman said he’s hopeful
his office will then catch up on the next cycle and deliver the first
of two 2008 property-tax bills in October.

But there are several steps that could trip up the Treasurer’s office
and delay the bills again. Rodman said he’s still waiting for certified
tax rates from the Marion County Auditor and the Indiana Department of
Local Government Finance. And once the rates are certified, each of
Marion County’s 60 local units of government – the recipients of
property tax revenue – has the right to appeal them.

“The last couple of weeks, things have gone pretty smooth. But there’s
many a slip between the cup and the lip. Things can happen,” Rodman
said. “Everyone’s working as a team. I feel pretty good that we’ll be
able to get the bill out in June
with a due date in July.”

Rodman said one of the biggest delays has been reconciling the
differences between the work of nine local township assessors. Marion
County Assessor Greg Bowes, a Democrat, assumed all their duties after
passage of a ballot issue last November calling for consolidation of
the duties at the county level.

“Some of them left their shops in pretty good shape and some didn’t. So
the County Assessor has had to pick all that up and get it into shape.
Hopefully this will be the last year we’re dealing with that problem,”
Rodman said. “Some of the township assessors, a couple of them did a
very professional job. And some of them didn’t do a good job at all.
The chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

Indiana’s much-publicized new property-tax caps will not apply to the
June reconciliation bills. Rodman said the October bills would be the
first affected by the caps, which will establish a 1.5-percent ceiling
on every home’s assessed valuation, with a 2.5-percent cap on rental
properties and a 3.5-percent cap on businesses.

In the following year, the caps are scheduled to drop to 1, 2 and 3
percent. Legislators in the General Assembly are currently debating
whether to permanently enshrine the caps into Indiana’s constitution,
as well as whether to phase them in more quickly.

Rodman’s presentation will be followed by City Controller David
Reynold’s update on local government finances in the first quarter of
2009.