By Dave Stafford
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. —
The South Madison Community School Corp. is suing the county and officeholders responsible for taxation, alleging the district was shortchanged by about $1.5 million in 2008 property tax revenue.
Madison County, county commissioners, the Madison County assessor, and the Fall Creek and Anderson Township assessors are named as defendants. The suit is likely to be amended to add the Madison County auditor as a defendant, said South Madison Community Schools Superintendent Tom Warmke.
The suit alleges that on March 27, 2009, the school district received its last property tax revenue check for the 2008 tax year. “The amount of the check was for an amount approximately $1.5 million less than the amount the Madison County auditor had previously informed South Madison it should expect to receive,” the suit alleges.
The suit says taxing authorities “incorrectly and negligently calculated the total assessed value of the property subject to property tax located within South Madison’s geographic boundaries.”
While the suit does not specify where the alleged mistake occurred, Warmke said it has to do with the assessment of the Nestlé property. The factory is in the Anderson city limits, but in the South Madison Community Schools district.
It is also located within a Tax Increment Finance District, in which taxes paid by new development are captured to finance bonds for road, utility and other public improvements within the district.
Warmke said South Madison’s shortfall was $1,480,000. He said the district was successful in a shortfall appeal, recovering $758,279 from the state. “The lawsuit is claiming that we reclaim $721,724,” he said.
Madison County attorney Gerald Shine said the taxes in question were prepared in the last year of township assessors, whose positions were stripped by the Indiana General Assembly and shifted to county officeholders.
“We’re trying to find the records to see what was done, and how the amounts were ascertained,” Shine said. He would not confirm that the Nestlé assessment was the source of the suit.
“Whether or not and how certain real estate in Fall Creek Township may have been assessed in 2007 for 2008 (taxes), that’s the crux of the litigation,” he said.
County officials recently were granted a second extension of time to respond to South Madison’s suit, giving them until the end of September.
A change of venue also has been approved for the case, which will be moved from Madison Superior Court 3 to a court in a neighboring county. Attorneys for the county and South Madison are taking turns striking jurisdictions until just one remains.
Contact Dave Stafford: 648-4250, dave.stafford@heraldbulletin.com
