But a quick check of facts determines that your “stadium project” cost, with fees and carrying costs, over $8.9 million. I don't know what else was included in that project, but it was expensive. And unneeded.

Xassessor, keep dreaming about the assessments being right. Whatever. At least we now have assessments in the hands of one countywide elected official. It's not where it needs to be yet–but it's a damned sight better than it was before.

But a quick check of facts determines that your “stadium project” cost, with fees and carrying costs, over $8.9 million. I don't know what else was included in that project, but it was expensive. And unneeded.

Xassessor, keep dreaming about the assessments being right. Whatever. At least we now have assessments in the hands of one countywide elected official. It's not where it needs to be yet–but it's a damned sight better than it was before.

A. The Stadium everyone gripes about ALSO INCLUDED other building initiatives – it isn't just about the Stadium costing $4 million.

B. There needs to be a better method of getting facts to the voters. Receiving facts from the School Corp is like taking advice from a car salesman. They might be selling you a car at a fair price, but how are you to tell. General Fund, Rainy Day Fund, Transportation Fund, School Levy Replacement Fund, can take money from here but not from there, 2 referendum questions worded exactly the same … just different percentages, state funding per student in xxxx year, but in yyyy year that will adjust because the MNO tax will kick in, but it is capped at nn% for the first B years, so you need to take that into consideration.

We are common, hard-working folks – fighting for our kids, striving to keep our jobs, trapped between aging, ailing parents and teeagers wanting to drive … SOMEONE needs to figure out a better way of delivering information to the voter.

The voter MUST assume some responsibility to consume it – but I think by anyones standard – this did not occur in Franklin Twp. and now were faced with the Superintendent's AXE in one hand and the FAILED REFERENDUM VOTE as his authorization to CUT, CUT, CUT in the other.

As for commercial/industrial taxes, yes there are not that many. And lets keep it that way. Take a look at Warren, Pike and Lawrence Township and how trashy they are as a result of needless commercial/industrial growth.

Of the assessed commercial properties I deal with in Franklin and Perry, 80% were assessed incorrectly at the outset. In some cases, wildly incorrect. As in: incompetent. I don't mean to indict all township assessors and their staffs, because some were delightful, but: my experience tells me their training was largely inadequate to keep up with the commercial market nowadays. Those assessors' data is used in more than compilation of taxes. Appraisers use the numbers to build their assessment files on a particular property, so it's very important. The inconsistencies among Marion's nine townships in this regard, was so ridiculous it was alarming. And the best one was only mildly adequate. National lenders scoffed at the incomptency. My sampling is random and may not represent true practices.

By the way, this is still true today: township or county assessors who are not independently licensed by the profession, can get “trianing” from their state associations, that amounts to little more than 4-5 days of classroom experience. Which is helpful but not one-100th of the training they need. Think: letting a Red Cross First Aid certified person treat you in an ER for a moderate injury.

Your recitation about commercial being higher, residential paying less, is exactly what I used to hear in township assessors' offices. It completely ignores market forces. It also ignores history….people don't like to hear this, but, for over two decades, commercial properties in this county paid more than their fair share as a ratio of comm/residential. Way more. The shift in ratio is one of the big reasons some pockets of Marion County got huge residential increases a couple of years ago…commercial's overall share dipped 3-5 points, and that had to be picked up somewhere.

To be fair, commercial properties can pass along their property tax increases to the end-users quicker than residential can absorb it. But it was badly out-of-whack for a long time.

And from the true commercial lending perspective, there's been almost no real spec commercial building in the metro area in 5-6 years. Indianapolis has escaped the huge spec commercial bust evident in so many other metro markets, and entire states like Texas, Florida, California, the Carolinas…