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Uncertainty over changes in Indiana's property tax system has created difficulties in setting a 1997 budget for the county assessor's office.
If the state's assessment system adopts fair market standards, the county assessor's office and township trustees will need a great deal of training, assessor Sue Ann Mitchell told the county council Tuesday.
Complicating matters is that the next reassessment is due to start in July 1997, she said.
"If market value becomes a reality, we need to take care of it and take care of it quickly," she said.
Indiana Tax Court Judge Thomas Fisher ruled in May that Indiana's system of assessing property for tax purposes is unconstitutional and should be based on fair market value. He gave the state until March 1, 1998, to adopt the new standards.
The state is appealing the ruling, but Mitchell said she expects the change to be made. "At this point we don't know, but I would be surprised if it didn't," she said.
Training is expensive and more computer equipment would be needed for the assessor's office and for the townships, she said.
Pointing to her proposed 1997 budget, Mitchell said, "Most of this is a shot in the dark because we don't know what reassessment is going to mean the next go-around."
Mitchell had requested a budget of $137,044 for 1997 for the assessor's office, compared to the 1996 budget of $141,320, and a total of $65,000 for the reassessment budget for 1997.
Township trustees also presented their proposed budgets to the council Tuesday, with the council preliminarily approving most budgets except for salary increases.
The council was critical of township trustees who apparently are not "carrying their load."
For example, council members said the Etna trustee, who was not present last night, does not attend training sessions or council meetings, was the last to have personal property recorded, and had the highest rate of error.
Rocky Hartzell, Etna Township trustee, said this morning that he has scheduling conflicts with training sessions, and that the budget he turned in for 1997 he believes to be fair. He also said his township is mostly rural and he must make a large number of house calls for personal property assessments, which may make his assessments late.
Also submitting preliminary budgets for next year were the coroner's office, for $22,978; the auditor's office, for $285,889; and the recorder's office, for $142,261.
The council will meet Thursday at 6 p.m. in the courthouse to consider budgets presented by the remaining county departments, including the courts, the sheriff's department and jail, the prosecutor's office, the surveyor, the Extension office and the Area Plan Commission.
All discussions are preliminary; final approval of county budgets will take place in September.
