July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Lack of crisis speaks well locally
Sometimes, it's the very lack of crisis that's newsworthy.
Consider, for a moment, the scrambling and finger-pointing going on in some neighboring communities.
Budgets are falling short, jobs are being eliminated right and left, those in charge are looking desperately for tax revenues that simply aren't there.
But that's not happening here, and it doesn't look as if it's going to be happening any time soon.
How come?
Three factors are at work.
The first is simply chance or dumb luck.
Many municipalities now facing a financial pinch can blame their woes on the property tax circuit breaker established by the Indiana General Assembly back in 2006.
The circuit breaker limits the maximum amount of property taxes to 2 percent of a property's assessed valuation.
A house assessed at $100,000 would be taxed at a maximum of $2,000, regardless of what the usual tax rate would say if it had been applied under the old rules.
Because property values in Jay County - particularly home values - didn't experience the sort of escalation that they did in metropolitan areas, the effect of the circuit breaker has, so far, been minimal.
County auditor Nancy Culy says the total lost revenue for all taxing units in the county has been about $10,000 so far.
That will rise in future years as property taxes are essentially capped and property values creep up.
But compare our situiation to a nearby mid-sized city, where the lost revenue totals more than $1 million out of a single year's budget.
Government officials there are faced with no-win choices: Cut local government services and jobs or raise taxes in an economic and political environment where a tax increase is a career-ender.
So some of our lack of local crisis is simply an accident of geography. Our property values haven't skyrocketed, so we haven't been whipsawed by the change in state law.
But that only explains part of the equation; local government action and fiscal philosophy also played a role. - J.R.
Friday: Using the tools available.[[In-content Ad]]
Consider, for a moment, the scrambling and finger-pointing going on in some neighboring communities.
Budgets are falling short, jobs are being eliminated right and left, those in charge are looking desperately for tax revenues that simply aren't there.
But that's not happening here, and it doesn't look as if it's going to be happening any time soon.
How come?
Three factors are at work.
The first is simply chance or dumb luck.
Many municipalities now facing a financial pinch can blame their woes on the property tax circuit breaker established by the Indiana General Assembly back in 2006.
The circuit breaker limits the maximum amount of property taxes to 2 percent of a property's assessed valuation.
A house assessed at $100,000 would be taxed at a maximum of $2,000, regardless of what the usual tax rate would say if it had been applied under the old rules.
Because property values in Jay County - particularly home values - didn't experience the sort of escalation that they did in metropolitan areas, the effect of the circuit breaker has, so far, been minimal.
County auditor Nancy Culy says the total lost revenue for all taxing units in the county has been about $10,000 so far.
That will rise in future years as property taxes are essentially capped and property values creep up.
But compare our situiation to a nearby mid-sized city, where the lost revenue totals more than $1 million out of a single year's budget.
Government officials there are faced with no-win choices: Cut local government services and jobs or raise taxes in an economic and political environment where a tax increase is a career-ender.
So some of our lack of local crisis is simply an accident of geography. Our property values haven't skyrocketed, so we haven't been whipsawed by the change in state law.
But that only explains part of the equation; local government action and fiscal philosophy also played a role. - J.R.
Friday: Using the tools available.[[In-content Ad]]
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