Though Purdue University was heavily involved in developing soil productivity figures 30 years ago, Indiana did not consult them on proposed updates, according to an agriculture professor. Gov. Mike Pence is expected to sign a bill today postponing the use of those updated figures, which came from the Department of Local Government Finance and which factor into farmland tax assessments. As part of the bill, Purdue agriculture researchers will work with state tax officials to review the updated figures and make a recommendation next year. Opponents said the updated figures would have lead to an average tax increase of 25 percent for farm owners. About 250,000 acres of land are devoted to farms in Kosciusko County, according to U.S. census data, but county officials were unsure what the increase would spell for farm taxes. County Assessor Laurie Renier did note that farm taxes have not kept pace with increased yields. There are thousands of soil types under the Purdue-designed system, and Larry Deboer, Purdue professor of agricultural economics, noted the proposed update changes very few of them. But he said part of the issue with the new figures was that they didn’t quite add up. “There was a change in the way farmland was assessed,” he said, noting soil productivity factors are supposed to average 1, but under proposed figures averaged 1.2. “That’s not the way we’ve always done it, nor the way the system was designed.” Soil productivity figures range from .5 to 1.28, based on factors such as the quality of the soil itself as well as grading, flooding or forest cover of the land. The system is designed to average 1 in order to give a baseline for comparison. The SPF of a given piece of farmland is multiplied by market factors such as yield, crop value and interest rate in order to determine the tax rate. Deboer noted increased yields are reflected in those market factors and would be counted twice if they were figured into soil productivity. Soil quality doesn’t change often and so the figures don’t need to be updated every year, Deboer said, but he did indicate other things that could be updated when Purdue reviews the system. He said it was designed with a yield of corn in mind, to keep things simple, but said it might be possible to do something more elaborate now. “Different crops make a difference,” he remarked. “Perhaps the assessment is not what it ought to be.”
