Daniels Orders Reassessments In 3 New Counties

INDIANAPOLIS -- Gov. Mitch Daniels on Wednesday announced he has ordered reassessments in Delaware, Gibson and Posey counties, and said he may order them in more counties.

The order came one week after a new assessment was ordered in Marion County because of discrepancies involving residential and commercial property that resulted in homeowners being hit with drastically larger bills, in many cases.

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Capitol WatchBlog: Property Tax Crisis Analysis

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Daniels said the problems in the three counties are similar to those in Marion County.

"The basic similarity is that the valuations of commercial property just didn't change at all in the vast majority of cases," Daniels said. "That's very suggestive that people threw up their hands and just didn't try and then left the burden of their spending increases on residential and occasionally rental properties."

Taxpayers in the three counties who haven't paid their first half bills already will pay the same amount they did last spring.

Daniels and the new commissioner of the Department of Local Government Finance, Cheryl Musgrave, have been looking into assessments in other counties after complaints from residents.

In Wednesday's news conference, Daniels and Musgrave said the main reason for the reassessment in Delaware County was that 63 percent of industrial property there saw no increase in value, shifting more tax burden to homeowners.

The reassessment could ultimately lower tax bills for many homeowners who might have been charged too much because business property was undervalued.

The Daniels administration has said there may also problems with assessments in Elkhart and Jefferson counties.

The state has sent out letters to 71 other counties, demanding that they send in their tax data so it can be analyzed.

The governor praised six counties, including Morgan, Brown and Montgomery, for adopting local income tax increases that will substantially reduce property taxes.