Daniels Mulling Property Tax Package

Lesley Stedman’s Sunday column this week muses about the governor’s likely property tax reform plan, and what shape his package might take.

From the Courier-Journal:

INDIANAPOLIS — Gov. Mitch Daniels is expected to unveil his plan for dealing with the property-tax situation as early as this week, although little has leaked out about what he might offer.

Daniels has said the plan likely will propose changing the Indiana Constitution, but whether he’ll be looking to remove the requirement for property taxes completely, eliminate a layer of government or offer some other amendment is unclear.

Whatever his ideas, they will likely serve at least as a starting point for legislative action next year.

For a while, it seemed that the legislative Tax and Financing Policy Commission, headed by Sen. Luke Kenley, would provide the road map for property-tax changes.

But last week, Kenley, R-Noblesville, said that he doesn’t expect his group to craft specific recommendations. Rather, members likely will try to agree on concepts and goals for the next session — such as an overhaul of the property-assessment system.

Kenley said last week that he expects Daniels will put out a plan that is far more detailed than anything the commission produces. And even House Speaker Pat Bauer, D-South Bend, said that’s OK.

None of this is to say that whatever the governor proposes will pass the General Assembly easily. In fact, there are so many ideas floating around there — some offered by the Realtors, the Indiana Farm Bureau and individual legislators — that whatever plan emerges (if a plan emerges) likely will be a mishmash of proposals.

But often it takes a governor to really get things rolling.

I don’t expect the Governor to say anything about his property tax plan until after the municipal elections; it would probably be politically imprudent for him to make the plan public or make a speech before then.

Moreover, Daniels has historically announced his major policy initiatives for forthcoming legislative sessions–from Major Moves to his cigarette-tax-for-health-care plan–in November and December, after elections but before Christmas.

He has never waited to make such announcements during the State of the State speech, for example, nor has he done it earlier than the first week or so of November of the prior year (when elections tend to be held).

That doesn’t mean that he won’t announce it soon; Mitch Daniels has utterly no sense of political timing whatsoever.

This being said, the governor has been supposedly going to announce his property tax plan “next week” since around Labor Day.

Daniels’ staff has been tight-lipped about his intentions thus far, and there have been few leaks (only often-contradictory rumors).

It’s probably a safe bet, however, that the governor does not intend to push for anything close to the complete repeal of property taxes.

Eric Miller, and his Advance America network of social conservative activists, is pushing hard for a program to completely abolish property taxes.

Yet the governor has asked the social conservative Indiana Family Institute to evaluate his plan, probably as a play to get them on board (assuming Eric Miller decides to go against the governor’s plan, whatever it is, IFI would be a very helpful ally).

This post is also available at Hoosierpundit.