Star continues Tax Blame series

There are some Sunday morning traditions in politics. Each network has their newsmaker talk shows. Key columnists write their big columns for Sundays. Here in Indianapolis, we now have a new Sunday tradition: the Indianapolis Star weekly piece on who is to blame for the property tax crisis.

Unfortunately, these pieces are red herrings. Last week's piece blamed folks, specifically churches and non-profits, for being exempt from property taxes. Yesterday, the latest blame was on the DLGF, Indiana's Department of Local Government Finance.

There are some salient points on the issue. Assessors admitted they laid most of the increased property values on residential homeowners. Further, there are some issues with the agency taking on more responsibility with minimal staff adjustments to address the same.

However, in our opinion, the DLGF is thrown under the bus by the Star. They signed off on some shoddy work by local governments, yes, but the Star seems to want to absolve these local entities from blame because of that. If mistakes were made, everyone who made them should be put under scrutiny, not just those higher up on the food chain.

Our great state has an unusual way to finance local government. Governments create budgets, property values are assessed, and the DLGF is responsible for reviewing both and coming up with tax rates. Simply, governments spend, and property owners are taxed to cover the bill.

It would seem to us that if the budgets and spending were less, there would not be a need to raise the property taxes. The Star still searches for answers.

Comments

[Tom]

Glad to see you continue this debate. Veritas Rex also has interesting thoughts on this: http://veritasrex.typepad.com/veritas_rex/2007/08/salivating-over.html