Published: April 18, 2009 10:11 pm         

Officials look to speed up property tax bill process

Vigo County goal is to get bills in mail by mid-to-late July; payments due by late August

TERRE HAUTE — Vigo County officials are taking steps they hope can speed up a process to get spring property tax bills into mailboxes by mid-to-late July, with tax payments due mid-to-late August.

Historically, spring property tax bills in Indiana are due May 10, with a fall property tax bill Nov. 10. However, since 2007, with state changes in property tax assessing and a requirement of trending property toward a fair market value, payment due dates have been pushed back at least four months.

Last year, spring property tax bills were due Sept. 5.

Earlier this month, Vigo County Auditor Tim Seprodi sent a notice to 28 taxing units in the county, asking them to sign a waiver in an attempt to speed the tax bill process. The wavier would allow three days instead of 14 days for taxing units to respond to a final state review of budget numbers.

“It was suggested by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance as a way to speed up the tax bill process,” Seprodi said. “It will allow us to get tax bills out about 10 days sooner.”

“We want, and the state is pushing, to get the tax bill cycle back on time” for spring taxes due in May.

Taxing units are the City of Terre Haute, Vigo County, plus townships, fire protection districts, the Terre Haute International Airport-Hulman Field, the Greenfield Bayou Conservancy District and the Vigo County School Corp.

Terre Haute, Riley and Linton township officials submitted waivers Friday, leaving just the airport yet to sign a waiver. “In order for this to happen, we must have 100 percent participation of all political subdivisions waiving the additional time,” the auditor said.

The Airport Authority meets Wednesday and is expected to sign the waiver, Seprodi said.

Vigo County Treasurer Dave Crockett, in an effort to speed the tax process, said he plans to contract with Worrell Corp., an Indianapolis printing firm, to print tax bills.

Under a new state law, property tax bills must include information on the current tax bill, plus bill history from the previous two years. Worrell, Crockett said, works through Manatron Inc..

“The tax system we have is with Manatron, so it will make things easier and smoother as we are going to a different style of tax bill,” he said.

Crockett said a different printing firm last year took nearly a month to print tax bills, which normally take about two weeks, causing the treasurer to seek a different company. In addition, Crockett said the treasurer’s office can use about 40,000 envelopes remaining from a 2006 tax bill printing, reducing the cost of mailing.

“The tax bills are later because of the changes from [House Enrolled Act] 1011. Tax bills are not just late in Vigo County, but it’s statewide,” Crockett said.

In a side note, Seprodi said the state has changed how it will distribute income taxes to government agencies from the County Adjusted Gross Income Tax (CAGIT) and the County Economic Development Income Tax (CEDIT, commonly called EDIT).

“We are now getting disbursements monthly,” Seprodi said. “We got three months of payments at one time, which we distributed in March. This month, we are now starting to send out monthly payments.”

That means the Vigo County School Corp. will get monthly CAGIT payments. This month was $158,228, while the Vigo County Public Library got $60,984. Terre Haute and Vigo County will receive monthly CAGIT and EDIT payments. This month Terre Haute received $362,719 in CAGIT and $377,458 in EDIT, while the Terre Haute Sanitary District got $105,176 in CAGIT funds.

“This monthly distribution is good, as government units get money sooner and on a monthly basis instead of big payments twice a year,” Seprodi said.



Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.

     

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