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Property Tax Bills are Increasing a Lot in 2023 Mar 22, 2023

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Indiana county treasurers soon will mail property tax bills to owners of homes, rental housing, farmland, and businesses. Most will see big increases in the assessed value of their property. This will mean big increases in tax payments.

The increase is a legacy of the pandemic. Property values rose a lot in 2021. Home prices increased as mortgage interest rates fell and people demanded more space to work at home. Farmland prices increased because corn and soybean prices spiked, making land ownership more profitable. Construction costs increased due to shortages of building materials.

Solar Energy Projects and Property Taxes Feb 21, 2023

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Utilities are building a lot of solar energy projects in Indiana. Fields of solar panels will become a common part of our landscape. This may help avert some consequences of climate change on the planet. But what are the local consequences?

Farmland Property Tax Misery Has Company Jan 25, 2023

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Farmland assessments for property taxes are going up. So are home, rental housing and business assessments. Property tax misery has a lot of company.

Farmland assessments start with a base rate per acre. The base rate is a statewide number calculated each year by the Department of Local Government Finance.

State Revenue Growth Will Return to Normal Dec 21, 2022

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Thursday, December 15, was a much-anticipated day at the Indiana Statehouse. It was Revenue Forecast Day, when the General Assembly heard the prediction of how much revenue will be available for state spending during fiscal years 2024 and 2025. The legislature will pass a two-year budget, in the session starting in January, based on these revenue estimates.

Holiday Inflation Cheer Nov 29, 2022

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The holidays are here. Time for good cheer and happy thoughts, even if candy canes and sugar plums cost 7.8 percent more this year than last.

That’s the 12-month inflation rate as of October 2022. The Consumer Price Index for all items shows prices 7.8 percent higher than in October 2021. This year has seen the highest inflation since the early 1980s.

How did that happen?

Cost of Living Adjustments Oct 24, 2022

Show notes

COLA stands for cost of living adjustment, and both the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service have just announced big COLAs for next year. COLAs are nothing new. They’ve been happening for decades. But inflation has been so low for so long that we hardly noticed them. Now inflation is the highest it’s been in 40 years, and COLAs are in the news.

The Housing Market is Cooling Off Sep 22, 2022

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The Federal Reserve is serious about battling inflation. They’ve raised their policy interest rate from near zero in February to an average of 2.33 percent in August. Earlier this week they raised it three-quarters of a point. It hasn’t been above 3 percent since early 2008.

The idea is to get people to borrow less, so they’ll spend less, so businesses have less reason to raise prices. Not much has happened to inflation yet – except in the housing market. That’s no surprise. Most houses are bought with mortgages, so if borrowing is more expensive, fewer people will buy houses.

Is this a Recession? Aug 25, 2022

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Is this a recession? Real gross domestic product has dropped for two straight quarters. Real GDP is our measure of goods and services produced, adjusted for inflation, and the United States is producing less now than it was at the end of 2021. Usually that’s exactly what we mean by a recession.

$6 Billion in Balances Jul 21, 2022

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Mid-July is number-cruncher nirvana if you follow the Indiana state budget. That’s when the State Budget Agency releases its closeout for the previous fiscal year. This year the glorious day fell on Friday, July 15, and we learned one astounding fact: At the end of June, the end of fiscal year 2022, Indiana balances were $6.1 billion. Our state has six billion dollars in the bank.

Inflation and Indiana School District Budgets Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

The inflation rate in May was 8.6 percent, the highest since the bad old days of the Great Inflation 40 years ago. We’re all paying higher prices. So are our school districts.

School districts face some costs that increase as prices rise, and other costs that don’t. Food, fuel and equipment prices rise, and schools must pay. But teacher salaries are set in contracts, and until those contracts expire, inflation won’t have an effect.

In 2021, Indiana public schools paid 62,000 teachers $4.4 billion in salaries and benefits. That’s more than one-third of total school budgets. Teacher contracts run for one or two years, and until they expire, pay will rise at rates set before inflation increased. After a year or two contracts will be renegotiated, and it’s likely that teachers will expect their pay to keep up with higher inflation.

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