Last year on Porter County Politics, I featured a series of articles written by former Porter Township Trustee and outspoken advocate for local government reform in Indiana, Bob Wichlinski. I’ve asked the northwest indiana site 219.com for current links to those articles so you can all get a refresher.

Today I came across Bob’s most recent essay entitled Hoosier Dreams Trended Away, which reflects on a very current controversy in Porter County right now. Some quotes and a recommendation that you read the whole article:

If you own property in Porter County you undoubtedly received the installment bill of your 2007 taxes payable in 2008. You may have noticed a dramatic spike in assessed value on your tax bill. If you only paid attention to the decrease in the amount you owed, go back and dig up the bill and note the top line “assessed valuation” and note any increase. That number will be increasingly important because it is upon THAT number that your tax caps will be computed in the future. A great many taxpaying citizens believe their 2007 taxes went down because of tax caps. NOT TRUE. They primarily went down because of the increased homestead credit granted by the State legislature when they discovered their new “market-based property valuation featuring trending” was flawed. The homestead credit is scheduled to be phased out in favor of tax caps.

He makes a great point, the tax caps aren’t even in effect yet. They will affect the next set of property tax bills, not the ill-fated and very overdue ones we just got a year late last month.

“You read it here first the use of trending or neighborhood factors to calculate assessed value is tantamount to ECONOMIC RED-LINING. Trending and neighborhood factoring is unlawful. We outlawed red-lining for any purpose. What infuriates me most is that while Rome burns, the county elected officials responsible for this system – good or bad – have demonstrated their inability or unwillingness to acknowledge the problem, embrace it, and FIX IT They know it’s broken … They look you in the eye and utter, “it’s the DLGF’s fault, we’re only doing what we’re told.” I THOUGHT you were an elected official”