Michael Walker, The Daily Sun

BOONE COUNTY - Gov. Mitch Daniels has extended the deadline for counties to ease property taxes by adopting a local option income tax. The news comes a day after the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance announced Thursday Boone County will not undergo mass property tax reassessments. It's up to the Boone County Council to make a decision regarding the optional income tax increase.

Thursday's news, announced at a press conference, came as a relief to the Boone County Assessor Lisa Garoffolo, who said a reassessment would likely increase residents' taxes and heavily cost the county.

"A reassessment in Boone County would cost close to a million dollars," Garoffolo said.

Recent property tax turmoil in Indianapolis had local municipalities and their residents worried about how much taxes here would increase, too. Earlier this year, property tax reassessments in Marion County caused some homeowners' taxes to increase by as much as 200 percent.

Now that the DLGF has OK'd assessments in Boone County, the deadline for property taxes has tentatively been set for Nov. 13. But because the state has yet to send new tax rates, Garoffolo said she is unsure what residents will have to pay and how much their taxes will increase.

The assessor's office expects the state government to forward new tax rates within the next 10 days. Once rates arrive, the Boone County Auditor's Office can create an abstract and advertise new property taxes.

Some surrounding counties received an overall tax rate increase of 20 percent.

Daniels has extended the deadline for counties to adopt a local income tax from Oct. 1 until Dec. 1. The optional tax gives local government the option to use an income tax of up to 1 percent to alleviate some of homeowners property taxes by spreading the load among all working residents in the county.