The governor may already be calling his property-tax relief plan a hit, but region officials who would lose their jobs or have to work under the plan's spending controls have a more mixed reaction.

"I don't like getting rid of local assessors," Lake County Assessor Paul Karras said Wednesday of Daniels' plan to eliminate the state's elected property assessors. "They are the bulldogs for the voters. They know the territory."

St. John Township Assessor Hank Adams said, "The governor is trying to tell me I'm not qualified to do my job, but I bet I'm more qualified to do mine than he is to do his.

"If assessments were inconsistent and unfair, that is the (Indiana Department of Local Government Finance's) fault. They are supposed to be controlling that."

But some in the region were cheering for Daniels' plan.

Wes Miller, a landlord and one of several tax-reduction advocates, said, "We can claim victory. His ideas run very close to ours. It puts more control in the hands of the people. We are very pleased, and we will be going to work to make it reality."

Lake County Commissioner Roosevelt Allen said the plan will be bad for Gary and east Chicago, which depend more heavily on property taxes from large-scale industry and steel mills.

"The industries on the lake shore contaminate our environment for their profit and to our detriment, and now they will make those tax subsidies permanent," Allen said of the governor's plan. "What arrogance. This sounds like grandstanding by the governor."

Highland Clerk-Treasurer Michael Griffin said moving the state further away from its property-tax base will make it more costly for local government to borrow money because investors consider the revenue flow from alternative taxes on sales and income to be less reliable.

Munster schools Assistant Superintendent Richard Sopko said he likes the governor's plan to have the state fully fund public schools, removing the reliance on local property taxes to fund school budgets. But he also said he has some concerns.

"I'd like to see a rainy-day fund dedicated to school funding to cover a potential two-year shortfall," he said.

Sopko said he hopes there is enough flexibility in state funding to ensure school bus fleets can keep up with spiraling gas prices.

Related stories

[previous_headlines:updates,news,business,opinion:10:14:"property tax":::today]