Indiana native and author, Kurt Vonnegut died at age 84. Apparently he suffered irreversible brain injuries as a result of a fall several weeks ago.

By a vote of 44 to 5, the Senate adopted House Bill 1478. Voting “no” were Senators Rogers, Simpson, Skinner, Smith, and Tallian. This is Senator Kenley’s bill designed to ease the property tax hit — expected to be a 15% increase if the legislature does nothing — and to shift local government’s reliance on property taxes to something else.

I have to admit, my brain seized up about half way through the digest. It’s been a long day, sure, but i’s also a pretty complicated bill. But, in general, it accomplishes this by having the state assume some of the expenses traditionally borne by local government — such as juvenile detention fees and department of child services fees. In exchange, the state will phase out the property tax replacement credit — currently the mechanism by which the state essentially subsidizes the county property tax burden. It also allows local government to reduce property taxes by replacing them with a county adjusted gross income tax or county option income tax.

That’s my dumbed down version, anyway.

Also, if you want a very readable explanation of why property taxes will probably go up this year, check out the March 22, 2007 edition of Capital Comments by everybody’s favorite economist, Larry DeBoer. His guess (absent action by the General Assembly): a 17.5% increase. He lists five major items that will affect your property tax bill. Among those, there is the issue of trending — currently property taxes are based on the value of the property on March 1, 1999. Assessors are now required to “trend” the property — basically use recent data to adjust the value every year. Year-to-year, that might not be a big thing, but this year, they’ll have to use the March 1, 2005 value — a 6 year jump. There is also the issue of the property tax replacement credit – that big subsidy the state used to pay to local government to reduce the need for property taxes. A lot of the 2004 budget was balanced by substantially reducing the amount of that replacement credit. The State shifted its burdens down onto the counties.

So, I expect legislators to be very motivated to protect their constituents against a 17.5% property tax increase and would, therefore, be surprised if some version of this bill does not pass.
[tags]HB1478-2007, taxes[/tags]

Theodore Kim for the Indy Star has an article entitled Indiana Senate passes budget plan. Now the House & Senate have to hammer out their differences in conference. Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has a little more information in her Louisville Courier Journal article.

The Terre Haute TribStar has a brief article entitled Indiana Secretary of State takes action against local mortgage lender. I surprised to find out that the Secretary of State has a role in mortgage practices. Seems more like a problem for the Attorney General or the Department of Financial Institutions.

According to the report:

The Indiana Secretary of State’s office filed an official complaint today alleging fraudulent practices at a Terre Haute-based mortgage lending company, Affordable Lending on Wabash Avenue.

From the report, it looks like a couple of property owners and a title company called Hoosier Title were in on the scheme that involved at least 23 properties and loans worth $1.4 million.

Update The Indianapolis Star has an article here.

With respect to the Sec’y of States involvement:

The agency filed an administrative complaint Tuesday against two Terre Haute-area firms used by two investors whom the secretary of state claims falsified loan applications to borrow $1.4 million.

. . .

Filing an administrative complaint amounts to a recommendation that the state revoke the licenses of specific loan originators and brokers at Extreme, and bar them from doing business as loan brokers in Indiana.

It also asks that Hoosier Title, Burnett, Sommerville and Extreme, which does business as Affordable Lending, be ordered to repay mortgage banks the $1.4 million plus 8 percent interest.

The next step will be a hearing before the state’s securities division, which can revoke licenses and order the restitution payments. Its decision can be appealed to Marion Superior Court in Indianapolis.

Left in Aboite has an excellent post on the In God We Trust license plates which Hoosiers are apparently subsidizing to the tune of $1.5 million and climbing from the Highway Fund

Quite a few bills passing the House today. They are:

SB 220 – Various transportation matters (among other things, makes Sections of S.R. 3, S.R. 9, and U.S. 20 heavy duty highways with a maximum weight of 90,000 lbs.)

SB 29 – TRF credit for military service.

SB 104 – Child care matters (primarily advisory committees for child care homes and regulations).

SB 134 – External defibrillators in health clubs. Requires health clubs have defibrillators and staff that knows how to use it while providing certain immunities for their use.

SB 155 – Alcohol blended fuel underground storage tanks.

SB 180 – Warranty repair and sales audit limitation. (Having to do with relations between vehicle manufacturers and dealers.)

SB 181 – Factory owned franchise limitation. Specifies that it is not an unfair labor practice for a manufacturer or distributor to establish or acquire for less than two years a franchisor owned outlet within the exclusive territory or market area of a franchisee.

SB 191 – Coroner issues. Having to do mostly with introductory and crime scene training (withholds coroner pay if they fail to complete the training.)

SB 261 – Condominium common areas and facilities – allowing sale of condo common areas if enough of the owners agree (95% or whatever is in the by-laws).

The Hoosier Beer Geek advises us that 3 Floyds is the king of the world. Three Floyds brewing company was named the Best Brewer in the World – 2007 by RateBeer.com. Their highest scoring brew was the Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout. I haven’t had the pleasure, but I can’t recommend their Robert the Bruce Scottish Ale highly enough. Great stuff.

Ed Brayton has a post entitled Dispatches from the Culture Wars: My Take on Theocracy which was triggered by his thoughts on the Blogswarm Against Theocracy. Basically, he cautions against over-application of terms like Theocracy and Dominionism, and alienating accomodationists who can be worked with and reducing the terms effectiveness against actual theocrats. His post seems to much more articulately describe some of the concerns I had when I learned of Blogswarm Against Theocracy.

Here is one I missed. From the burning the village to save it department, we have the tale of the lottery privatization bill in the Senate. Niki Kelly had an article on the passage of the lottery plan in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette entitled Changes aid passage of lottery plan. Generally, the bill seeks to privatize the Indiana lottery to a private vendor. Proceeds from the privatization are reportedly needed as part of the Governor’s effort to fight brain drain from the state of Indiana by giving scholarships to Hoosier students. Also, a big chunk of the money would go into a “life sciences fund.”

Life sciences refers to:

Research in bioscience, biotechnology, biomedicine, medical device technology, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, bioenergetics, health care engineering, nanotechnology within the life sciences field, agri-sciences, and other related health disciplines and disciplines considered life sciences.

Thanks to an amendment introduced by Senator Drozda, no grants containing money from the fund may be used to conduct embryonic stem cell research. The restriction is not solely on human embryonic stem cell research, it is on all embryonic stem cell research. So, for example, Purdue would have to take great efforts to make sure to keep the money away from any research that might involve, say, mouse or fruit fly stem cells in some way.

I don’t think an anti-science stance is going to be any more helpful than taking an anti-gay position in making sure that our best and brightest minds stay in the state. At the very least, we’re sending a mixed message by proposing to sell off a valuable state asset in the name of fighting brain drain, then restricting some pretty basic research for reasons that are arbitrary at best.

Fortunately, the bill has been referred to the House Rules committee and, I believe, the deadline for committee action has passed.

[tags]privatization[/tags]