Site Archive

Inflation and Indiana School District Budgets

June 21, 2022

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…

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Shocked and Not Shocked by Home Assessments

May 24, 2022

Every year about this time homeowners receive a Form 11 from their county assessor. It’s the notice of assessment of land and structures, and it…

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How to Read an Indiana School Referendum Question

April 19, 2022

Election Day is coming up – on Tuesday, May 3 – and school referendums will be on the ballot in nine school districts. It’s best…

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The Residential Share of Property Taxes is on the Rise

March 30, 2022

Here’s one way to think about property taxes: The local government sets its budget, subtracts all other tax revenue, and raises the remainder with the…

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What Will Happen to Inflation?

February 22, 2022

The inflation rate was 7.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022, the highest inflation in 40 years. It arrived suddenly and unexpectedly. A year…

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Farmland Assessments will Increase for Taxes in 2023

January 28, 2022

Farmland property taxes have been falling. Total property taxes paid by agricultural property owners fell 2.3 percent per year from 2017 to 2021, mostly because…

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What Happens to Property Taxes During Inflation?

January 4, 2022

The property tax is the biggest source of tax revenue for most Indiana local governments, and they were worried about the effect of the COVID…

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We Finally Know How the Recession Will Affect Property Taxes

November 29, 2021

What will be the effect of the COVID recession on the property taxes that fund Indiana local governments? I’ve been thinking and writing about the…

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Birth Rates Have Been Falling for a Long Time

October 20, 2021

Americans are having fewer children. Reports this past summer showed that the birth rate dropped in 2020, to 56 births per 1,000 women age 15…

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What Three Forecasts Say About Our Economic Future

September 22, 2021

Where is our economy going? Let’s ask some folks whose job it is to forecast the future of the U.S. economy. How about looking at…

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Last Year’s Recession Hits Indiana Local Governments Next Year

August 19, 2021

The National Bureau of Economic Research is our quasi-official umpire of recessions and expansions. Last year it marked the peak of the last decade’s expansion…

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Reasons to Celebrate the Indiana Fiscal New Year

July 22, 2021

Happy belated New Year, everyone! I mean the Indiana Fiscal New Year 2022, which started on July 1. The State Budget Agency celebrates the event…

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What Kind of Inflation Problem Do We Have?

June 24, 2021

We’ve got an inflation problem. What should we do about it? That depends on what kind of inflation problem we’ve got. In May the consumer…

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A State Revenue Forecast for the Ages

May 18, 2021

On April 15, toward the end of the 2021 session of the Indiana General Assembly, the State Budget Committee heard the revised revenue forecast. It…

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Pent-Up Demand, Then and Now

April 21, 2021

Suppose you’ve been prevented from buying things for a year, or maybe a decade. Now the dishwasher is on the fritz, the tires are nearly…

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It’s Tax Season. Where Do Your Local Taxes Go?

March 18, 2021

Tax season is coming up. This year, federal income taxes are due on May 17th. Indiana’s state and local income taxes are due on April…

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Okun, Phillips and Our Economy

February 15, 2021

If you want to be remembered in economics, get yourself a curve. There’s the Lorenz curve, the Laffer curve, the Kuznets curve, and, probably most…

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The Recession May Be a Light Hit for LIT

January 20, 2021

The December state revenue forecast for Indiana projected that individual income tax revenue would be about $6 billion this year. But Indiana uses local income…

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The State Revenue Forecast: We Might be OK

December 17, 2020

Can it be, is it possible, that 2021 won’t be terrible? The state revenue forecast was released on December 16 to provide a starting point…

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A Tale of Two Recessions

November 19, 2020

It was the worst of times. It was the even worse worst of times. It was the Great Recession of 2007-2009. It was the COVID…

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