Senator Deig has introduced SB 548 which is a reasonably specific piece of legislation. It provides for the reimbursement by the state of borrowing costs of a taxing unit in a county if: (1) the department of local government finance ordered a reassessment of real property for the assessment date in 2006; (2) the billing of property taxes in the county in 2007 was late; and (3) as a result, the taxing unit had to borrow for current operations.
I’m fairly sure this applies to the state ordered reassessment in Marion County. I can’t remember if it would apply to other counties. Gibson and Posey counties might have also been so affected, but I think Delaware County was initially slated for reassessment but that decision was ultimately reversed.
can’t say I agree, the re-assessments in the cases I’m aware of were from elected officials doing a terrible job and trying to skirt the letter and intent of assessment law. First they should be removed from office … which the referendums did for Marion County but not in Lake County … and then jobs merged into a County CFO
Most assessing can be handled by an outside entity for less than the cost of an entire assessment office, if the county can bring itself to outsource the entire project. Don’t pay the assessment bill to the outside company until it’s approved by DLGF
Forget the reassessment part.
How about helping out any unit where incompetence at the county or state level caused units to incur out of the normal borrowing.
I know many units who never had to borrow for operational cash flow before the 2003 reassessment. Since then, many counties have never gotten back on track. Most places are at least 6 months behind, if not more. Most temporary loans have to be rolled over and are becoming long-term, permanent borrowing
Also, let’s throw the DLGF under the bus on this one too. They spent more time stonewalling units and defending themselves in court than working budgets. Many units did not have a 2008 budget until November 2008 and they are still waiting on DLGF hearings concerning the 2009 budget.