Morgan County candidates put in hot seat during public forum Saturday
read more recent story comments Reader comments| Don Adams Sunday, March 11, 2012: 9:26 am More from Don Adams  | The major point of my response to the taxing question were missed by this reporter. 1. In 2008 the County Council SHIFTED the some of our taxing revenue sources from property to income. This accomplished several positive things. a. Property owners on fixed incomes benefited. b. Morgan county became more attractive to business development... thus providing more revenue and more jobs. c. Over 98% of the property owners in the county payed less property taxes in 2011 than in 2007...significantly less. This report is also confusing and misleading about the redistricting that was done and has been accepted by the State. If you are interested in a more thorough ..and accurate.. explanation, please visit my blog at http://bethelpond.com/scraps/ Thanks, don |
| Danny Stewart Sunday, March 11, 2012: 10:58 am More from Danny Stewart | Mr. Adams, Here is the problem with your response. It was the state that was in the process of putting the property tax caps into place that lowered most peoples property taxes, not the county. At the same time, the state opened the door for the counties to raise the county income tax to offset the loss of revenue. Unfortunately, the council, which you were a part of at the time, decided it wanted more than just to make up for the lost property tax revenue, it wanted more. A result, which as the lady that brought the subject up said, gave us the 4th highest county income tax in the state. Therefor, I find your response both condescending and misleading. |
| Justamother Sunday, March 11, 2012: 11:17 am More from Justamother | I am addressing Robert O"Neal and his suggestion of gravel roads again if needed. If he has ever drove on gravel roads every day he would not even think of it. We lived on gravel roads with all the dust, dirty cars. rocks hitting the cars for years especially ours in Green Twp. It was just wonderful when our road was blacktopped. New gravel would be put down with the grader coming along later and scraping it in to the ditch on each side. Then money was spent for more gravel. Until then we were left with mud roads.We were one of the last to get blacktop. Don't take it away when our roads need repair. |
| nobodyimportant Sunday, March 11, 2012: 2:11 pm More from nobodyimportant | It seems that any response to the shifting tax structure should have addressed the bottom line. With any shift, there will be winners and losers. That's understood. What I am curious about is what was the bottom line in terms of revenues collected by the county. Is the amount being realized after the shift more, less, or no change? Was there a tax increase or a tax decrease? |
| Don Adams Sunday, March 11, 2012: 2:15 pm More from Don Adams | Hi Danny, It was the action of our council that both preceded the caps and also greatly reduced property taxes in Morgan County. Additionally, the .025% increase in income tax revenues provided needed revenue for all the public safety folks in the county... which I hope you favor... I do. It also enabled us to get very favorable interest rates on the addition to the jail that was built saving the taxpayers even more money. Here is a link to info on property taxes in Morgan County www.in.gov/legislative/pdf/MORGAN11.PDF I'll post this link on the county website later today. Thanks, Don |
| my2centsworth Sunday, March 11, 2012: 7:59 pm More from my2centsworth | There has been no confirmation that John T. Young will attend. Justin Oakley is planning on attending but there has been no answer from Tony Bennett. I would suggest people attend this next forum and ask questions. That's how you find out who is the best candidate to elect. I went and I learned a lot from each candidate and it helped me make up my mind on who to vote for. |
| my2centsworth Sunday, March 11, 2012: 8:04 pm More from my2centsworth | Mr. Adams, on your answer part B you said this attracted more businesses to Morgan County. Where are the businesses. I don't know that I know of any that came here. Please enlighten me to those businesses. |
| my2centsworth Sunday, March 11, 2012: 8:12 pm More from my2centsworth | I am not in favor of gravel roads. I lived on one for 17 years and I hated them. First of all, the do produce a lot of dust and if you live close to the road you might as well forget about dusting and cleaning your house and washing the automobile. Second, the road grader needs to come down the road and even the gravel out and how often are they going to do that? As I remember they hardly ever came down my road. Third, those rocks won't stay on the road long and then more gravel has to be put down. How much is that going to cost the taxpayers? Fourth, when it snows and the snow plows come down the road to clean the road how are they going to move the snow without taking all the gravel with it? I have been on black topped roads all over Indiana and some other states. I notice some roads aren't as bad as Morgan County. Is it the way the roads are done? Are they not done correctly? Maybe that is some of the problems- our roads aren't done right. |
| Don Adams Sunday, March 11, 2012: 9:37 pm More from Don Adams | Dear two cents, Thank you for your interest. I will check with our Economic development director more of a county wide perspective, but within two miles of where I live on Bethel Road, five businesses that I am familiar with are (1) Indy Tractor who moved here from Hendricks and (2) Mt. Olive Manufacturing built a new operation at FlagStaff...which was a major expansion and also a move from Hendricks County. (3) TOA, the Japanese auto supplier (stamping parts for Isuzu and Subaru) has also made major investments and increased their operation significantly adding many jobs and (4) the folks that make the Apache Sprayer are building a major new expansion operation down on Merriman Road. (5)Pacmore, across from Poes has an operation that paid over $37 thousand last year in Property taxes year and has 100 employees. They recently announed a 3 Million dollar investment including the addition of 25 more jobs. I also understand that Harley-Davidson had narrowed a Morgan County to one of two sites nation wide (the other was in Ohio) before a decision to wait until the economy picked up. For an era of a fraught with the worst recession since the Great Depression, we have fared fairly well....at least in the area near me. I think if we get a change of leadership in Washington, we could see an even greater stability in the private sector leading to more growth. Morgan County has postured itself to be in an excellent position for long term sustainable growth in manufacturing. I much prefer that to the over abundance of retail as you see in the counties the north and east of us... lots of traffic and entry level wages. Another initiative that you and I will be watching is the Aircopolis concept that has been recently initiated. We have many reasons to be very optimistic about the future of the economic growth in the county...more than i have space to discuss here... but as always, I would be happy to sit and discuss this with you over a cup of coffee or more. For the past several months I have had morning hours of 8:00 on Tuesday and Biffs in Mooresville and 8:00 at Amy's in Brooklyn on Thursday. If those are not conveniant for you, please pick a time and i will make it to what works for you.. I will also try to make sure that any meetings that deal with this important issue are posted on the county website so you can continue to find answers and contribute your thought and concerns. Cordially, Don |
| Don Adams Sunday, March 11, 2012: 10:14 pm More from Don Adams | Dear 2 cents, A brief...too brief.. discussion on the road problem. Roads are maintained though the gas tax and the wheel tax. (note: no Property taxes are used as some people assume) Indiana's gas tax is 18 cents/gal..the national average is 20 cents. It is distributed to the counties in a formula I have yet to understand.. It does NOT have a thing to do with which county you purchase you gasoline in as some think. Compounding the problem for local government is the State taking the funding for State Police and other operations out of the road tax... can you imagine what would happen to our road money if we financed the Sheriff's department out of the road tax! They have also allowed the formulation of the material to include more RAP (Recycled Asphalt Pavement...the millings). The result is that a road that use to last 15-18 years is now lasting 10-13). Additionally, the dollars we receive for our roads from the State is approximately the same amount we received ten years ago....and with costs increasing..sometimes doubling, you get the picture. Some counties neighboring us (Putnam-Greencastle especially) have had to resort to returning roads back to gravel. Last winter I was in Green County and they simply did not remove the snow from many of their roads...even those that were paved. This is not a problem peculiar to Morgan County... it is a State-wide problem. I just returned from "Road school" at Purdue last week and many ...no all would be better.. of the counties that I ran cross were facing the same dilemma of short funding with a State that has yet to address it. I am on legislative Committee of the Indiana Association of County Commissioners.. and we will be actively seeking some solutions to the growing problem with those leaders in our General Assembly. We have currently over 600 million dollars under contract in building I-69...and our county roads are dissolving under our noses... makes little sense to me. It is all about priorities...and we need to affect those. Don |
| nobodyimportant Sunday, March 11, 2012: 10:21 pm More from nobodyimportant | Commissioner Adams. I thank you for taking the time to respond to some of the posts here. I would like for you to respond to mine. It seems that any response to the shifting tax structure should have addressed the bottom line. With any shift, there will be winners and losers. That's understood. What I am curious about is what was the bottom line in terms of revenues collected by the county. Is the amount being realized after the shift more, less, or no change? Was there a tax increase or a tax decrease? |
| Don Adams Sunday, March 11, 2012: 10:22 pm More from Don Adams | On the roads A small correction.. I used he term Road tax... I meant the gasoline tax that we pay at the pump/gal. Another part of that dilemma is that cars are getting better mileage but they still do their number on the roads...i would think that folks might drive less with the increasing cost of gas, but i have not seen the data for that...if there is any. Don |
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