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Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Ind. Gov't. - "Clark council approves budget with special tax increase"
Updating earlier stories, including this one from Oct. 3rd, Ben Zion Hershberg of the Louisville Courier-Journal reports today:
The Clark County Council approved a $14.5 million general fund budget Monday that includes $1.5 million that it hopes to win in a pending lawsuit before the Indiana Tax Court.If the county isn't allowed by the tax court to collect the additional $1.5 million, more cuts will have to be made, council member Brian Lenfert said.
The general fund budget approved by the council Monday night is $4 million less than was approved last year.
“That's a big step toward getting our fiscal house in order,” Lenfert said.
County government has been in a fiscal crisis for more than a year, and it has been sued by the county's judges and sheriff seeking enough money to keep their departments operating through the year.
Financial consultants say many of the county's fiscal problems stem from a decision by the county council in 2007 to cut property-tax collections by 25 percent, or $2.7 million, to relieve the burden on taxpayers.
But all of the roughly $4 million in county financial reserves have been spent since then, and because of state limits on how much counties can increase property tax collections from year to year, county revenues have fallen behind what's needed to operate county government.
Last year the county commissioners and council requested a special $7 million increase in property taxes for this year to close the gap, but it was rejected by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance. The county has appealed that rejection to the Tax Court, which has scheduled a hearing on the appeal for Oct. 28 in Madison.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 11, 2011 10:17 AM
Posted to Indiana Government