Gov. Braun pushes for broader relief in property tax bill as it heads to the Indiana House

INDIANAPOLIS — After a week-long break, the Indiana General Assembly will head back to the Statehouse next Monday.

Arguably, the most important piece of legislation – besides the budget bill – is Gov. Mike Braun’s amended property tax plan. This is a bill on the Indiana House’s plate that is still not where the governor wants it.  

“We’ll get to where we have a happy medium in there,” Gov. Braun said Friday. “That’s the goal.”

During a roundtable discussion the governor had with constituents Friday in Anderson, he had a simple message for local governments who have expressed concerns his property tax plan could hurt them financially: prove it.

“We’re not trying to be unreasonable,” Gov. Braun said. “We’re going to be willing to listen, and you’re not going to outfox me or maneuver me; this is what I did for a living.”

He also told the group he was disappointed that Indiana Senate lawmakers removed a provision of his that would have reset property tax rates to what they were in 2021.

”I was disappointed in that they probably were listening a little bit too much to getting their ears bent by the lobbyists that represent local governments and school districts.”

Braun suggested he might not sign the bill into law unless that part was either revised or revisited.

“The other two parts were capping it going forward—[Senate lawmakers] are basically doing that in a different form—and then make referenda transparent, so, we got two out of three,” Braun said.

“I very much agree with [Braun],” Nickolas Freeman, a first-time home buyer in Anderson, said. “I hope that there’s more relief involved, and the 2021 freeze is important, at least to me.”

Freeman was one of several Anderson residents Gov. Braun met with on Friday. According to Freeman, his tax rate has gone up 300 percent since he bought his first home three years ago.

“It caused my tax rate to go from $400 a year to $1,500 a year,” Freeman said. “I love my community; I chose Anderson over anywhere else, and I’m just really excited to see what the Governor can do to help not only our community but the state at large.”

Braun has threatened to veto the bill or call a special session if the bill passes in its current form. House leaders on both sides of the aisle say they’re confident that won’t be necessary.

“I’m not the least bit worried about that because I think we’re going to get it done,” Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston said right before the General Assembly went into recess last week.

“I think that we can come to a place where you are giving some property tax relief without doing total damage to local governments and schools and that’s what we’ll strive to do in the second half,” Indiana House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta said.

The House and Ways Means Committee will officially start discussing the Senate’s amended property tax bill on Wednesday.