House-Senate talks start on Indiana property tax relief accord

BY PATRICK GUINANE, Times of Northwest Indiana
pguinane@nwitimes.com

INDIANAPOLIS | Tepid posturing and rehashed arguments were the order of the day as House and Senate negotiators met for the first time Friday to discuss a final accord on property tax relief.

With two weeks left in the legislative session, they continue to work within the framework Gov. Mitch Daniels laid out last fall. That means a 1 percentage point sales tax hike to fund a state takeover of school and welfare expenses, referendums and other cost-control measures and homeowner-friendly tax caps that would cut funding for schools and local government by more than $600 million statewide.

Cities, schools, townships, county government and dozens of other taxing units in Lake County face the harshest blows from the tax caps -- more than $250 million in combined losses by 2010. State Sen. Frank Mrvan, a Hammond Democrat serving as nonvoting adviser, is the lone region lawmaker on the House-Senate conference committee.

"This (meeting Friday) was just to get acquainted with attitudes. There's a long way to go," Mrvan said. "In Lake County we have some tremendous problems. I'm very happy to be an adviser because, looking at this group, they don't really know how bad it is in Lake County."

The discussion bogged down Friday when the topic of streamlining tax assessment duties came up.

The Republican governor wants to boot all 1,008 elected township assessors and shift their responsibilities to the county level, but the effort has stalled in the GOP-controlled Senate.