By Bryan Corbin, Evansville Courier & Press
INDIANAPOLIS - House and Senate negotiators have reached a tentative agreement on a property-tax relief package and are presenting it to their rank-and-file members, the speaker of the Indiana House said today.
"I think we have an agreement," said House Speaker Patrick Bauer, who negotiated for House Democrats with his Senate Republican counterpart, Luke Kenley. "It's basically a compromise all the way through."
Bauer would not disclose many details of the agreement. He did say it still includes capping property taxes at 1 percent of assessed value for residential property, 2 percent for rental property and 3 percent for business property, which were key elements of Gov. Mitch Daniels' original package and were in separate versions the House and Senate both passed.
Schools and local governments had complained that by limiting the amount of property-tax revenue they could collect, the property-tax caps or "circuit breakers" would have a harmful budget impact on them.
"We tried to make sure there was some safety, if you will, in the caps on schools, with $50 million (in relief funding) the first year and $70 million the second," Bauer, D-South Bend, said.
The House speaker added that the compromise still includes referendums in some form for the largest school construction projects.
The deal also includes Senate wording about eliminating most of the 1,008 township assessors statewide but keeping them in the 44 largest townships, if voters agree in a referendum, Bauer said.
Bauer said he was taking the deal to his House Democratic caucus to run it past rank-and-file members. He said he did not think the House could vote today on the relief package, House Bill 1001, and would instead hold a final vote Friday. "It takes a while to have it processed," Bauer said, noting that the legislation is approximately 800 pages.
Daniels has said that if lawmakers do not pass a property-tax relief package that he can sign by Friday night's deadline, that he would call the Legislature back into special session.
The House reconvened this morning after being adjourned since Monday. This morning, Bauer also appointed House conferees to hammer out an agreement on the three-strikes immigration bill, Senate Bill 345, which clears a procedural hurdle to further negotiations on that bill.
The immigration bill's sponsor, state Rep. Vern Tincher, D-Terre Haute, said he was optimistic a compromise could move through the conference committee and to the full House before the Friday night deadline.