By Tim Vandenack, Truth Staff
A group of area county officials who drew up a plan to deal with the property tax uproar will have a chance to bend Gov. Mitch Daniels' ear on the issue.
Elkhart County Commissioner Mike Yoder said Thursday that he and seven to nine other area officials will travel to Indianapolis on Wednesday to discuss the plan.
"I'm encouraged that the governor shows this kind of interest," he said. "It's really a good opportunity for the county commissioners to share with the governor directly some of our concerns, our observations."
The local plan, endorsed last week by leaders from Elkhart, Marshall, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben and St. Joseph counties, calls for removing a measure of school and welfare funding from property taxes. That would reduce the property tax load, addressing outrage among many homeowners about spikes in their 2007 property tax bills, while increases in state income and sales taxes would compensate for the lost revenue.
Jane Jankowski, the governor's spokeswoman, confirmed the planned 45-minute meeting, but would only characterize the nature of the gathering in broad terms.
"As the governor does with many different groups, he extended an offer to meet with him to discuss property tax issues," she said.
Whatever the case, one possible topic, aside from the northern Indiana plan, could be the governor's pitch for counties to adopt special local option income taxes as a means of reducing property tax reliance.
Lawmakers approved legislation earlier this year that lets counties adopt hikes of up to 1 percent in the tax and Daniels last week extended the deadline to do so to Dec. 31 from Oct. 1.
"This is the most powerful tool by far available to anyone right now," he said in a press release last week, one of several pitches in recent months for the proposal.
The northern Indiana plan, aside from touting a reduction in property taxes, also calls for taking a closer look at which entities can secure tax-exempt status. It also cautions against local option income taxes, but Yoder said Thursday that after learning more about the possibility, he'd be open to considering such a change.
According to an analysis by the Legislative Services Agency, a 1 percent local option income tax hike in Elkhart County would generate $37.2 million. That would reduce the average property tax bill by 20 percent if used to offset the bills of all taxpayers here. The revenue would reduce the property tax bills on owner-occupied homes, if focused there, by 60 percent, on average.
Meanwhile, Cheryl Musgrave, who heads up the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, plans to come to Elkhart to discuss the property tax issue, perhaps within the next few weeks, according to a department spokeswoman. Daniels requested that she come.