“It’s complicated,” said Mayor Rick Fledderman of the state’s overhauled property tax structure. Now that’s an understatement government, school and other leaders of agencies that rely on public dollars can agree with.

All seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude about the reforms.

When asked whether the changes will positively affect Batesville’s finances, Fledderman said April 25, “That remains to be seen. That's why we're investigating this further. (Please see box at right.) ... From what I've seen, (budget money for) 2008 will be OK. In ’09 and ’10 we will be affected some. We'll get a little less, it looks like.”

The mayor said with the new House Enrolled Act 1001, budgets of “all the local taxing units can affect each other. If the school would do a major project, it could limit us.”

Fledderman’s gut feeling? “I don't really think it's going to have a major impact on us.” Until he learns more and until the city’s 2008 budget is approved, “spending is limited to essential items only. We're holding new hires at this point. We just have to watch it until we get a better handle about what's going on.”

Donald Dunbar, Ripley County Council president, believes the property tax changes will have a positive change on the county’s government, but remarks, “When you take something out, you have to get it (money) somewhere.”

He doesn’t feel that limiting government spending will affect county departments too adversely because “we approved a budget and that’s all they can spend.”

As a cushion, the county has a Rainy Day Fund that is drawing interest, he noted.

Donald “Butch” Williams, Franklin County Council president, reports, “All I know is what I have read in Farm World and the publication put out by the Association of Indiana Counties. Basically, Farm Bureau does not think the new changes are good.”

He explains, “I fear that after the sales tax has been raised to lower property taxes, after the state income tax has been raised to lower property tax, after the basic structure of county government as we have known it since the beginning of the State of Indiana has been changed, we will find that we are still short of funding for the things mandated by the state.”

Williams points out the state will pay for some expenses, such as child welfare, for which the counties previously were responsible. “Will the funds we have been using to pay those still be available? Probably not.”

By turns, the president is skeptical and optimistic. “In my two terms as a county councilman, I have never seen the state mandate something and then tell us how to pay it. So I have little faith that after different funds are taken away that we will have direction as to how to pay for what is left ....

“I guess time will tell” whether these property tax changes in favor of homeowners were a good idea, he says. “We must have faith that those in the position to make the decisions that will affect all of us in this great State of Indiana will have the same divine guidance as those who first wrote the Constitution for Indiana – a Constitution that has served us well for so long.”

School administrators also are concerned about how the changes will impact area families.

Kris Wilson, Sunman-Dearborn Community School Corp. business manager, says, “Property taxes were a stable income .... They weren’t tied to the economy .... Now the amount (of money) available could change.”