Advance Indiana has an interesting post up about St. Joseph County’s accusations that the Dept. of Local Government Finance is playing politics with the certification of budgets. According to an article in the South Bend Tribune, St. Joe officials say of the DLGF:
They accused the DLGF of “holding St. Joseph County tax rates hostage since July, resulting in hundreds of millions of tax dollars going uncollected, increasing taxpayer anxiety and frustration, and costing cash-starved local governmental units tens of thousands of dollars in borrowing costs.”
St. Joseph County compared the DLGF’s requirements to “Whack-A-Mole”. Every time they would submit something, the Department would ask for something more and delay approving the budget. One of the things that held up this year’s budget request was parcel data for taxes payable in 2008.
[St. Joseph County Auditor] Eby said he couldn’t understand why data for next year would hold up taxes for this year.
“That’s just beside the point,” [DLGF Commissioner] Musgrave said.
The three [St. Joseph County] officials pointed out that some counties, including Elkhart County, received their tax rates early, then got letters in August saying they were out of compliance in some areas. If that could be done in Elkhart County, they wondered, why couldn’t it be done in St. Joseph County?
What is the political upside to holding up approval of a budget? South Bend mayor Stephen Luecke faces a tough election against a conservative Republican candidate. Delaying budget approval means that tax bills could be held up so that they had to go out right before the election. And, let’s face it, Gov. Daniels has taken pleasure in making St. Joseph County his whipping boy throughout his term — that’s the origin of his gubernatorial opponent, Gov. Kernan and House Speaker, Rep. Bauer. Daniels went so far as to illegally oppose St. Joseph County’s request to move to the Central Time Zone — the only county request he opposed. St. Joseph County was also directly affected by the Toll Road sale. So, for us paranoid types, this could just be more of the same.
Leave a Reply