- Property Assessments have been a total mess for decades, with the townwhips in northern Lake County being the worst. The three steel mills along the Lake are actually now assessed by the state DLGF, not the township assessor, due to so many years of inconsistencies and lawsuits.
- Indiana now features trending and market based assessments. These changes are clogging the system, and will take another two years to get back to billing property owners on time.
- In the spring of 2008 the Legislature passed HEA 1001 which capped property taxes in 2009 for all units of government at 1.5%, 2.5%, and 3.5% depending on the use. These caps are further reduced to 1%, 2% and 3% in 2010. Cities and towns with low tax rates really weren't affected much. Gary with a tax rate in excess of 6% was affected a lot.
- Gary went yesterday to the state Distressed Unit Board to request an extension of the time the law mandated to reduce their budget by $32 million. This amounts to almost half of the entire city budget in 2007. They asked the state to let homeowners and landlords pay the statute mandated level of taxes, but bring business property taxes down slower to give them time to cut the budget so drastically.
Post Tribune: Appeals board hears Gary's financial plight
