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Capital Comments

Purdue Agriculture

Timely topics on public policy issues related to state and local government in Indiana published once a month.

government

All Episodes

00:06:12

Farmland Property Taxes May Keep Increasing

Capital Comments ·

2024/01/24

The memo was posted at the end of December, on theIndiana Department of Local Government Finance website. It announced the base rate for farmland at $2,280 per acre for property taxes in 2025. That’s up 20 percent from this year’s $1,900. It will be the third straight year of big increases. The base rate rose 16 percent from $1,290 in 2022 to $1,500 for 2023, and 27 percent to $1,900 for 2024. What’s the base rate, and why is it going up so much? Economist Larry DeBoer explains.

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00:06:29

Taking Inflation Apart

Capital Comments ·

2023/12/18

Consumer price index Inflation ran at 2.1 percent per year from 1997 to 2019. Then came the pandemic recession and recovery. Inflation dropped to 1.3 percent in 2020—including 3 months of deflation, when prices were falling—then soared to 8 percent in 2022, the highest inflation rate in 40 years. The peak month was in June that year, when consumer prices averaged 8.9 percent higher than in June of 2021. Since then inflation has come down a lot. As of November 2023, prices were 3.1 percent higher

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00:06:29

How Much Will Homeowner Property Taxes Rise in 2024?

Capital Comments ·

2023/11/20

The second installment for 2023 property taxes was due earlier this month. If you’re a homeowner, either you sent a check to your county treasurer or your bank paid the tax out of escrow. Homeowner tax bills were especially painful in 2023. Statewide average homestead tax bills went up 17 percent over 2022, a much bigger increase than in years past. So we wonder, now that 2023 is done, what will happen to tax bills in 2024?

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00:06:39

How Can a Homeowner Calculate the Cost of a School...

Capital Comments ·

2023/10/25

Election Day is coming up, and 12 Indiana school districts have put property tax referendums on the ballot. Voters who own homes will want to know, “How much will I pay if the referendum passes?” Here’s how to make a good guess.

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00:06:27

How Do States Manage Without Individual Income Taxes?

Capital Comments ·

2023/09/20

Indiana has an individual income tax to help pay for state services. Indiana raises about $8 billion a year from its state income tax, which is 36% of total general fund revenues. Most states have income taxes, but eight states do not. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington (state) and Wyoming do not collect individual income taxes to fund their state governments. How do they get by? What do they do instead?

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00:06:27

Supply Chain Pressure is Easing, and so is Inflation

Capital Comments ·

2023/08/23

Inflation is falling, and we’re not in recession. How can that be? Economist, Larry Deboer, provides insight.

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00:06:21

Indiana State Balances and the Pension Stabilization...

Capital Comments ·

2023/07/26

The Indiana fiscal new year is upon us, having begun on July 1. The big New Year’s celebration happened on July 13, with the “closeout” announcement. That’s the state’s accounting of revenues, spending and balances as of the end of fiscal 2023. The good news: Indiana has $2.9 billion in the bank, 13.6 percent of the general fund budget. That’s enough to cover cash flow and most shortfalls in revenue below expectations. That amount takes some explaining though, because a year ago balances were

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00:06:06

Will the Inflation Rate Keep Falling?

Capital Comments ·

2023/06/26

Inflation is coming down. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures the Consumer Price Index reported the 12-month inflation rate for May at 4.0 percent, down a whole point from the 5.0 percent rate in April. Inflation had peaked in June 2022 at 8.9 percent, which was the highest inflation rate in 40 years. Larry Deboer gives his analysis of what it all means.

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00:06:27

The General Assembly Delivers Some Property Tax Relief

Capital Comments ·

2023/05/23

Indiana homeowner tax bills increased 17 percent on average this year, the largest increase in years. Other property owners saw big increases too. The pandemic caused property values to rise in 2021, which increased property assessments in 2022. Tax bills in 2023 were based on those assessments. Purdue Extension ag economist, Larry Deboer, breaks it all down.

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00:06:39

An Extra Billion and a Half in State Revenue

Capital Comments ·

2023/04/27

On April 19, 2023, in the Indiana Statehouse in the city of Indianapolis, one-point-five billion dollars appeared out of thin air. The state revenue forecast upped its prediction of revenues for the rest of this fiscal year and the coming biennium, 2023-25, by $1.5 billion over the prediction from last December. What happened? Larry Deboer explains.

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00:06:28

Property Tax Bills are Increasing a Lot in 2023

Capital Comments ·

2023/03/22

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

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00:06:11

Solar Energy Projects and Property Taxes

Capital Comments ·

2023/02/21

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?

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00:06:24

Farmland Property Tax Misery Has Company

Capital Comments ·

2023/01/25

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.

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00:06:29

State Revenue Growth Will Return to Normal

Capital Comments ·

2022/12/21

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.

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00:06:31

Holiday Inflation Cheer

Capital Comments ·

2022/11/29

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?

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00:06:41

Cost of Living Adjustments

Capital Comments ·

2022/10/24

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.

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00:06:12

The Housing Market is Cooling Off

Capital Comments ·

2022/09/22

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

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00:06:08

Is this a Recession?

Capital Comments ·

2022/08/25

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.

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00:06:40

$6 Billion in Balances

Capital Comments ·

2022/07/21

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.

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00:06:31

Inflation and Indiana School District Budgets

Capital Comments ·

2022/06/21

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

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