By Susan Erler, Times of Northwest Indiana
susan.erler@nwi.com
GRIFFITH | Gerald Le Donne told Indiana officials Monday he pays one of the highest property tax rates in the state yet has no sidewalks, sewers, curbs, streetlights or city water.
"I feel like I've been stiffed," Le Donne said.
The resident of rural Calumet Township was one of nearly 300 people to pack the Griffith High School auditorium for a public hearing by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance.
The hearing was meant as an opportunity for Calumet Township residents to comment on proposed annual adjustment to property tax assessments in the township, which encompasses Gary, Griffith and surrounding areas.
The Department of Local Government and Finance performed the annual adjustment after Calumet Township failed to get the job done by a May 15 deadline, Commissioner Timothy Rushenberg told the audience.
In an attempt to get the Lake County property tax process back on schedule, "Calumet Township was the sole obstacle," to getting it done, Rushenberg said.
The Department of Local Government and Finance has been critical of Calumet Township Assessor Booker Blumenberg's work, and Blumenberg, a Democrat, has maintained that Republican state officials are out to weaken him in an election year.
Blumenberg did not speak during the first couple of hours of the hearing, and it's not clear whether he attended.
Of greater concern to most audience members, however, was why their property taxes continue to rise in areas where property values are stagnant and some municipal services are declining.
Many were not satisfied with the department's proposed annual adjustments, which call for a decrease of 2 percent in the tax values assigned to residential property and a 2 percent increase in the assessed values of occupied commercial and industrial properties.
Some called for a baseline adjustment in rates going back several years.
"Our prices in this area is too high," one audience member said. "We are the highest taxed people in the whole state of Indiana. I think that's unfair."