Assessed property values in Wayne County increased by $105 million for property taxes to be paid in 2015, and Union County’s grew by $39 million.
Those numbers might normally come as the result of a new factory or housing developments, but county officials say the growth mostly comes from agriculture because of a tax formula agriculture groups are hoping to change.
Franklin County farmer Roger Boomer said he already has received his 2015 property tax bill, but he hasn’t opened it.
Boomer said he knows the news won’t be good.
“They’ve cut the taxes on houses way back and farmland is making up the difference,” Boomer said.
Senate Bill 436 addresses some farmland assessment problems. The bill, on which State Sen. Jeff Raatz (R-Centerville) was an author, passed the Indiana Senate in February and is now in the House’s Ways and Means Committee.
The bill requires farm soil productivity factors, a component of the farmland assessment formula, to remain unchanged for 2016 taxes.
It also would retain the 2015 base assessment of $2,050 per acre for farmland in 2016. Without the legislation, the base rate next year would be $2,420.