By Meranda Watling, Journal & Courier
mwatling@jconline.com
A decade of major property tax reforms -- the most substantial since the 1970s -- left taxpayers and local governments asking for one more thing: stability.
After a 1998 Indiana Supreme Court decision deemed Indiana's property tax assessment system unconstitutional, state and local officials spent the 2000s designing a new system based on market values -- and then working out the kinks.
The assessment changes sent homeowner taxes up at first, delayed bills, and led to a backlash and new calls for property tax reform.
That came in 2008, when the state took over paying school general funds, gave new deductions to homeowners and started in motion property tax caps that in November may go before voters for possible inclusion in the Indiana Constitution.
Larry DeBoer, an agricultural economist at Purdue University and local government finance expert, said the story of the decade has been "trying to deal with the consequences of that court decision" in 1998.
DeBoer said he believes the property tax reform of 2008 was probably the culmination of a major shift away from property taxes to other funding sources.
"What's in place now probably will be what we're working on in the future," DeBoer said.
"What we'll spend the next decade working out is who has won and who has lost in the tax changes."