Articles
Governor Daniels' Weekly Wrap-up: 01/15/08
A look at news and events in the Daniels Administration
Volume 2, Issue 64
January 7-13, 2008
Governor Daniels to deliver 2008 State of the State address
Jan. 10, 2007- Governor Mitch Daniels will deliver his fourth State of the State address on Tuesday, January 15, to a joint session of the Indiana General Assembly in the House Chambers. The address will begin at 7 p.m. (EST) and is expected to fit in a 30-minute window.
"This will be the shortest of the speeches I've given and certain the most focused," said Governor Daniels. "I've got one big thing on my mind-the largest tax cut in state history."
The address will be broadcast on local television and radio stations and will be available live on the Internet at www.in.gov/gov.
Governor visits flood damaged areas in northern
Jan. 9, 2008- Governor Daniels and Indiana Department of Homeland Security director Eric Dietz traveled to White and Pulaski counties to survey the area's damage from recent flooding. The governor toured the areas by helicopter then talked with affected homeowners and emergency personnel in
"When natural disaster comes to
Exotic wood supplier to relocate, expand in
Jan. 11, 2008- Carl F. Booth Veneers, a provider of exotic wood veneers to the executive aircraft industry, announced it will relocate its
The supplier of veneer wood products will close its
"Carl F. Booth Veneers is a home-grown Hoosier company that continues to create opportunities for Hoosiers in
IN THE NEWS
Daniels' plan is best hope for tax fix
January 14, 2008
The political peril to them brought on by continued financial hardship to Hoosier property owners is that nothing substantive will get done amid the political jockeying and grandstanding.
There will be no winners assuming such a dismal scenario. Taxpayers demonstrated in November that they are angry and ready to hold someone, anyone, accountable. They'll be holding the right people accountable in the next gubernatorial and legislative contest, should inaction triumph.
Gov. Mitch Daniels serves up the most cogent, coherent plan for checking property taxes and transferring critical welfare and school costs to the state. We hope that legislators can rally in a bipartisan manner behind his plan.
They have failed to put forth a more straightforward plan of their own, so the alternative to any failure to rally behind Daniels' plan may simply be failure.
The Daniels plan increases the state's sales tax by 1 cent while capping property taxes at 1 percent of assessed valuation for homeowners; 2 percent for rental properties; and 3 percent of the assessed valuation on business property. The business community is up in arms over the sliding scale, proving, as the Indianapolis Business Journal has editorially noted, that "Daniels is willing to agitate his political base to do what he thinks is right. That's leadership."
Reasonable differences can exist over etching these caps into the Indiana Constitution, as the governor proposes. But the tradeoff is that every property owner is provided a limit, a cap, against the current uncertainty of virtually unchecked, double-digit percentage jumps in property taxes.
Legislators need to share the governor's wariness toward a gathering grassroots movement to eliminate the property tax altogether. Doing so would necessitate huge hikes in the state's sales and/or income taxes or, in the alternative, draconian cuts in local services, where the property tax remains the mainstay source of funding.
No, the challenge is to make the property tax fairer. That is a daunting but doable task that starts by embracing the Kerner-Shepard reform commission's call to abandon township government as the source of determining property assessments, thereby eliminating more than 1,000 units of government statewide that are duplicative, costly, wasteful and inequitable in their administration of assessments. The process harkens back to a day in the 19th and early 20th centuries when townships were at the center of local government services delivered. No more.
Daniels: Big jobs announcement coming
January 11, 2008
By John Russell
Another big company could be headed for
Gov. Mitch Daniels, outlining the state's economic progress in 2007 to a packed auditorium group of real estate agents and brokers Thursday, hinted that a deal is imminent.
"Somebody in this room will soon have a new client," Daniels said during brief remarks at the State of
Daniels did not name the company or give any hints about the industry or sector, types of jobs or size of property it is seeking at the event hosted by Colliers Turley Martin Tucker.
The state's Indiana Economic Development Corp. could not be reached Thursday evening for comment.
The last major jobs deal for Central Indiana was Medco Health Solutions of New Jersey, which announced last month that it will building an automated pharmacy distribution center in Boone County, creating 1,306 jobs by 2012.
More surprises are likely in store.
Last month, Daniels said the IEDC's performance in 2007 -- attracting commitments from over 150 companies to bring in 22,627 jobs -- included about 3,000 jobs yet to be publicly announced.
Daniels' tax plan gets GOP go-ahead
January 11, 2008
By Niki Kelly
The biggest difference is that the caucus wants legislators to take the first step this year in passing a constitutional amendment to repeal property taxes on homesteads only.
The process would take until 2010 to finalize and likely would not become effective until at least 2012.
"The General Assembly has a duty to make this property tax crisis the last one Hoosier homeowners have to face," said House Minority Leader Brian Bosma, R-Indianapolis.
Overall, the House Republicans listed 10 goals to major property tax change; nearly all are identical to Daniels' with a few exceptions.
For instance, while the governor wants to impose a cap on local government spending, the House Republicans also think the state should abide by its own spending cap.
Also, under the GOP proposal, all future school construction would be funded through local option income taxes instead of property taxes.
And while they are pushing the homestead repeal, Bosma said his caucus will not withhold its support from other immediate changes if the repeal is not successful.
"Some folks don't believe that should move forward," he said. "It will be a tough debate we hope to win."
The idea surfaced just this week and has many unanswered questions, said Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne.
He admitted the idea is intriguing but said there also are concerns about the message it might send to businesses to keep the property tax for them but not homeowners.
Meanwhile, the Senate continued to move forward with property tax legislation.
The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday passed Senate Bill 1 and Senate Bill 14. They would eliminate the remaining 15 percent of the school general fund property tax levy and several child welfare levies, as well as a small forestry and state fair levy.
There is no replacement revenue contemplated in the bills yet.
But Daniels' plan calls for the state to use existing property tax replacement credits and a 1-cent increase in the sales tax to cover the new state obligations of about $2.65 billion.
Sen. Luke Kenley, R-Noblesville, said the attraction of the levy buyout is that it removes entire levies from the property tax base that can never grow back again.
"There is a sense of finality to it, and that gives a lot of comfort for taxpayers," he said.
