By ERIC BRADNER, Evansville Courier & Press correspondent
INDIANAPOLIS - A state agency board on Thursday approved requests to tap into Indiana's coffers to make up for property tax shortfalls in Evansville and Vanderburgh County.
The Indiana Department of Local Government Finance's tax control board, which regularly handles similar funding requests from local government units, voted to give Evansville $1.5 million and Vanderburgh County $550,000.
That money closes the gap between the property tax dollars the city and county expected to collect and had built into their budgets and how much actually ended up reaching their bank accounts. The funding from the state goes into Evansville's and Vanderburgh County's overall budgets, rather than being earmarked for a specific line item.
The shortfalls come from erroneous assessments and unpaid property tax bills. Evansville and Vanderburgh County on Thursday joined a long list of cities and counties asking the state board for help.
Evansville's budget counted on collecting $55 million in property taxes, but the city only received $53.5 million, according to documents Deputy Controller Jenny Collins, filed with state officials.
Vanderburgh County expected nearly $34 million but collected just $33.4 million, similar documents filed by County Auditor Bill Fluty show.
Appealing to the board to make up the difference is standard operating procedure and doesn't mean government units seeking state aid have done anything wrong, according to Audra Levy, spokeswoman for Evansville Mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel.
The state board meets each month to handle requests from government units large and small. It deals with cities and counties as well as townships, solid waste management districts and more. Last year, Evansville requested $1.7 million and the tax control board approved $1.3 million.
Others there
Evansville and Vanderburgh County - represented in Indianapolis by Collins and Fluty - were joined at the hearing Thursday by government units such as Marion County's mass transit system, Vigo and Jackson counties and the city of Anderson.
Officials representing those governments had roughly 10 minutes each in front of the board to present detailed documents that listed budget projections and broke down where the money lagged as they made their cases for state funding.
After sifting through those documents, the board voted unanimously to back Evansville's and Vanderburgh County's requests and recommended that Commissioner Tim Rushenburg sign off on them.
Rushenburg in December replaced former Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave. His OK is the final necessary step before the money from the state hits city and county bank accounts, officials said.