Field, computer work required for new system won't be done by March 1 deadline

By Kurt Van der Dussen, Hoosier Times Indianapolis

The courts and the state tax board both say the ongoing property reassessment must be done by March 1, so it can take effect next year.

Yeah, well, too bad.

So say the people who have to do the job: the state's 92 county assessors.

The halls of the Statehouse are rife with talk that lawmakers may vote to delay the implementation of reassessment from 2003 to 2004.

But they have no real choice. A reassessment forum drawing county assessors plus other experts to Indianapolis Friday made it clear there's little chance the reassessment will be done on schedule. In fact, said Monroe County Assessor Judy Sharp, president of the assessors' state association, several counties haven't even begun the process of reassessment. That includes Lake County, whose gross assessing inequities led to the State Tax Court ruling a few years ago that threw out the state's old assessing system and ordered it replaced with a new one.

Sharp recently surveyed the state's 92 county assessors on how far along they were with the new market- value-based reassessment and when they'd be done. She got 54 replies and the message was uniform. Not one thought they'd be done anywhere close to March 1.

"Hopefully by end of 2002," Sharp answered her own survey. Brown and Lawrence County assessors both replied "???????"

Elkhart County thought it might be done by summer. Some county assessors said perhaps by this fall. But many said not until sometime in 2003.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! 2006?" gibed the Allen County assessor.

Most said they had their basic land assessments anywhere from 80 to 100 percent complete. But only about half were entering data into their computers — and that was on old programs, because nobody has received the necessary new computer software yet.

The St. Joseph County assessor, Dave Wesolowski, said at the forum that by law the reassessment must be both accurate and equitable — and there's no way to do that before 2003.

Mike Statzer, a township assessor in Wayne County, agreed.

"if we blow it, we blow it — but we're going to be uniform," he said, noting that consistent errors in assessing hurt people less than inconsistent ones.

He also said the reassessment is going to run late regardless of what the courts, state tax board or the Legislature set as deadlines.

"We'll get it done when we get it done," he said with a tinge of defiance in his voice.

http://www.hoosiertimes.com/stories/2002/02/17/news.020217_SH_A1_JLR94260.sto?PREVURI=%2Fstories%2F2002%2F02%2F17%2Findex

-- Anonymous, February 17, 2002