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.

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 was 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 mu 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….

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