February 28th 2008

                                                           Who is assessing you ?

OK...I am not really one who will rock the boat a lot (maybe I do when you ask people who know me ...)

but from what I have seen in the last few days really opened my eyes.

Being in Real Estate I am very interested what is happening with Indianans Taxes and with the assessment system

and I was in the fortunate situating to be able to talk to Cheryl Musgrave the director for the

Department of Local Government Finance in Indiana and she discussed and showed us how many of

the current elected assessors are even have the mandated 2 step certification and how many do not.
 

Now let me throw this one in….as an assessor you are appraising the property for Tax value and when you

would like to practice and get paid to be an appraiser in Indiana you either have to be a licensed

Real Estate Broker or a licensed Appraiser.

Without getting in to the licensing requirements I just would like to tell you it takes quite a bit to be either.

Many of the elected Township and County assessors are coming not out of the Real estate field.

I am not sure what they have done prior to being elected assessors but I have heard that one of them

had been a teacher, a janitor and a housewife.

Nothing against the job they held prior to their election but what qualifications do they have or hold to

make then qualified assessors?

Like I told you the State mandates that they have the 2 step certification but when you are elected

for 4 years what will make you get the certification….nothing!!!! You are in this job for 4 years who cares right…?

Here are some eye-opening numbers for you to look at:

Indiana has 91 county assessors and out of the 91 county assessors the one in

Lake County has not even started with the 2 step certification.

There are 7 counties (Johnson, Clark, Putnam, Shelby, Clinton, Porter and Steuben)
who at least managed to have part one of the 2 part certification done.

Out of the 91 County assessors 83 have done the mandated 2 step certification.

Theses numbers look very good but now let me turn your attention to the Township assessors we have

….OH yes I did forget to mention that we on top of the County assessors we have 1008 Township assessors.

We have 1008 Township assessors, out of the 1008 township assessors 301 took the time to get

 their 2 step certification.
150 managed to have step 1 of the certification done and 557 are not certified at all.

OH, all theses numbers are not taken out of thin air, theses numbers are courtesy of

Cheryl Musgrave the director for the Department of Local Government Finance in Indiana and to her defense

…she just took over this job and is trying to make a change to the better.


Wonder why we have an issue with Tax assessments in Indiana?

....... HMMMM ……can’t put my finger on it…..maybe we need to appoint the Assessors position to a qualified

person rather then elect them and maybe we need to cut down on the amount of assessors who are mudding up the soup….