The state reports the total local 2019 budget Order for our Schools, County, Cities, Libraries, and Townships in Hamilton County will be $1.2 billion. This is pretty astounding considering we have about 120,000 households which means we are taxed $10,060 per household. This is about $3,714 per every man, woman and child. Budget Order Spending is not a Budget Order. Budget Orders are the intended cash the County, Cities, Libraries, and Townships plan to collect. For example, a city may spend $100 million, yet a budget order will only report out $85 million. That means this city uses debt to spend an additional $15 million and the budget order will represent the cash, or actual taxes in cash required to make the debt payments. Where is all this cash going? Mostly to our schools followed by the various cities and towns.
Tax Revenues
Who is taxed and how much? Our taxes are from many sources but mostly are paid with property taxes, sales taxes followed by income taxes. Business property owners also pay. Property Taxes Our property is a tax on a net assessed value and not the market value of your property. The County will determine the values for your property a year in advance and we know what property owners will pay. For 2019 the total net assessed value (AV) for our property is $22 billion. Local Governments are taxing $596 million based on our levy and net Property values. Homes and Rental property totals about $514 million Business property taxes collected is estimated at approximately $81 million. (Assuming a 2.15% business property tax rate on average). Tax Increment Finance (TIF) districts will collect $76 million. TIF is a complex Economic Development tool using taxpayers collateral to finance certain hand-selected projects diverting those property taxes within a mapped out area away from schools, the county, libraries, townships and even the city itself for a specific project or infrastructure. These are taxes collected by local cities but not reported in any budget order. Local Income Taxes is 1% The county wage earners had a taxable income of $16.7 billion collecting $168 million. The state will decide how much to distribute to the county, cities, libraries, and townships. Schools are not funded with Local Income taxes (LIT). In the past few years, the state held on to more income tax than distributed and going to release some of that balance for us to budget. 2019 Distribution amount is $174 Million for budgeting. Businesses do not pay a local income tax.
Note: Hamilton County wage earners pay the state 3.23 percent of our taxable income for a total of $520 million for our state services.
Sales Taxes Pays for Teacher Salaries and Benefits The State collects our sales taxes going into one big pot. The state decided our schools will receive. The education fund for Hamilton County schools is about $362 million in sales taxes. The state sales tax is 7%. Assuming 35% of disposable income is spent per resident, the state might collect around $400 million from Hamilton County Residents. Fees and Other Taxes Fees and other revenue is a long list and might include Federal and State Grants, user fees, court fines and more. We collect approximately $74 million. (Property less LIT less School sales tax revenues)
Budgets are always predictions. For historical spending, please visit the state site. Happy searching!
David Giffel is a Fishers Indiana homeowner, Republican Hamilton County Delaware Township Board Member, Hamilton County Delaware 19 Republican precinct Committeeman, FCoHC Board-member, Chairman Central Indiana IoPP Chapter, entrepreneur and has over 29 years business experience in manufacturing polymer resins, compounds and plastic films.