By Rusty Nixon Correspondent
PLYMOUTH — Marshall County just got $1.2 million richer — for the moment.
Marshall County Auditor Penny Lukenbill came before the Marshall County Council with a resolution to transfer that amount of money into the County “Rainy Day” fund. The money is surplus from the operation of the Department of Family and Children and the Department’s Psychiatric Residential Treatment fund. The state of Indiana took over all operation of the welfare department as part of its property tax reform bill HB 1001. The legislature ruled that the various Indiana counties would retain surplus money, placing it in the “Rainy Day” fund should any outstanding bills for the time period up to Jan. 1 2009 surface.

As part of that same bill, “Circuit Breaker” caps on certain categories of property tax were also initiated and Lukenbill had solid numbers for the coming year on just how that will affect the county.
It appears that the caps will give the county a hit of around $114,000 less in tax revenue for the coming year. The biggest impact on the county was in the residential category where it appears that caps will take off around $104,000 of revenue.
Hardest hit in the county will be the city of Plymouth that looks to lose around $77,000 in the coming year.
Part of the same legislation, requiring the non-binding recommendation of the County Council on all budgets for a particular county’s taxing entities such as schools, libraries and cities and towns, was given some tweaking by the past session of the legislature.
By law, all such entities must submit their budgets to the Council 45 days prior to their budget adoption date. The Council must then review the budget and make their recommendation within 15 days of that same date.
If either entity – the particular taxing unit, or the County Council – does not meet that time standard, they will be required to use the previous year’s budget, appropriations and tax levy.
Council President Matt Hassel asked Lukenbill to contact all the county’s entities to ask them to submit budgets for review at the Council’s meeting on Sept. 8 so that all tax entity budgets could be considered at one time to determine their total affect on the tax rate.