Published: October 25, 2008 12:38 am      

Voters will decide whether to retain township assessors

Voters will decide whether to retain township assessors



By DAVID A. MANN

David.Mann@newsandtribune.com

Voters in New Albany, Jeffersonville and Clarksville will decide whether to keep their township assessors with a referendum on the Nov. 4 ballot.

New Albany voters will weigh in on New Albany Township Assessor Barbara Sillings. Her duties would be handled by County Assessor Brenda Egge, if voters decide to do away with the office.

Clark County voters will decide on Jeffersonville Township Assessor Vicki Conlin, who assesses the value of Jeffersonville and Clarksville properties. If the referendum passes, her duties will be consolidated into the County Assessor’s Office, held by Vicky Kent Haire.

The referendum, billed as a means of streamlining government, is a part of a property-tax overhaul passed by the Indiana General Assembly earlier this year.

“My main thing is to have a local representative for people to come to,” Conlin said as a reason to keep her office open.

Sillings believes it would take away a service without cutting any cost.

For many Indiana residents, property tax bills came in higher than normal during the last year, thanks to a new system of assessment that uses fair market value to determine taxes owed.

Residents across the state voiced anger and the General Assembly passed House Bill 1001. It capped homeowner property taxes at 1 percent of a property’s assessed market value and called for government streamlining measures.

The bill mandated that all townships with less than 15,000 parcels of real property be under the umbrella of a single countywide office. Those with more than 15,000 parcels would be up for a take-it-or-leave-it vote.

The Jeffersonville Township Assessor’s Office is responsible for about 30,000 parcels. New Albany’s is responsible for about 20,000.

“There are ways to keep government efficient without getting rid of the representatives that people need to talk to,” Conlin said.

She called the move a “first step toward ‘unigov,’” something she doesn’t believe Clark residents are interested in.

“I would love to stay in here and give my service to the people,” said Sillings. “I just don’t think putting 40,000 parcels under the same office is a good idea,” she said.

She believes there won’t be any costs saving because the same amount of land still has to be assessed.

Haire supports keeping the Jeffersonville Township Assessor’s Office, noting the extra work her office has taken on this year because of the streamlining of smaller township offices.

“To accept 30,000 more parcels would take a little adjustment,” she said.

Haire added, however, that if voters decided to do away with the township assessor, her office would be ready to handle the added work.

On a state level, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce has called on voters to do away with the office, saying it would provide more fair and consistent assessments.

“The reason we feel it’s smart [for voters] to do this is that if the township assessors under-assess property, then people in the county will pay a higher rate” in order to offset the difference, said Mark Lawrance, senior vice president of the chamber.

Lawrence noted that prior to this year, Indiana had 1,100 elected assessors — more than California, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania combined.

Many of them were removed when House Bill 1001 went into effect, he notes.

“Around the state, we have heard all of those went well,” he said.