Capital Comments
Looking Back 25 Years — 24 October 2025
I’ve been writing this column once a month for 25 years. Last month marked the 300th column. Let’s do one more, number 301. And...
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News and Stories
Capital Comments
Property Tax Reform: Phasing Out, Phasing In — 12 September 2025
The Indiana General Assembly passed a bill to reform property taxes back in April. It’s the third big reform of the past 50 years, after the...
Capital Comments
The Incredible Shrinking Tax Base — 28 August 2025
The Indiana Constitution of 1851 had a very broad idea of what should be taxed by the property tax. Basically: tax everything. It said the General...
Capital Comments
Are Higher Tariffs Causing Inflation? — 26 July 2025
First, are tariffs higher? It’s been hard to follow the many impositions, cancellations, negotiations and pauses in tariff policy. But one...
Capital Comments
Indiana’s County Assessors Predict Home Values Well — and that’s the Problem — 26 June 2025
Indiana uses an assessment standard for property taxes called “market value in use.” The assessment is the value of the property...
Capital Comments
The Personal Property Exemption: Not so Minimal Anymore — 20 May 2025
Sometimes taxes cost more to collect than the revenue they generate. Back in 2015, the Indiana General Assembly recognized one example. Back then,...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Big Property Tax Bill Also Reforms the Local Income Tax — 25 April 2025
The governor signed Senate Bill 1 into law on April 15, 2025. This is the bill that was introduced with the governor’s big tax cuts for...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Indiana Property Tax: It’s Complicated — 27 March 2025
The Indiana property tax is complicated. Each spring the county treasurer reminds us just how complicated it is, by mailing form TS-1,...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Property Tax Reform: What’s Going on in the Room Where it Happens? — 21 February 2025
The Indiana General Assembly is debating property tax reform. Senate Bill 1 is a focus of the debate. The original bill introduced in January...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Property Taxes on Farmland May Be Reformed — 24 January 2025
Property taxes on farmland went up a lot in 2023 and 2024. They’ll be going up a lot in 2025 too. The reason is the rise in the base rate of...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Scrooge and Malthus — 26 November 2024
It’s a strange line, though. There’s a “surplus population”? Great Britain’s population in 1840 was 18.5 million....
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Policies to Cut Homeowner Property Taxes — 24 October 2024
Suppose we want to cut property taxes for homeowners. How could we do that? Probably we should start with another question: Why would we want to...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Federal Reserve Makes Its Move — 26 September 2024
The Federal Reserve’s press release from Sept. 18 said it would “lower the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/2 percentage...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: How Do We Know If a Recession Has Started? — 26 August 2024
How do we know if a recession has started? Sometimes it’s obvious. In March 2020 during the pandemic emergency, weekly applications for...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Balances Cover Shortfalls in Indiana’s State Budget — 25 July 2024
In fiscal 2024, revenues were 1.4 percent higher than in 2023. That’s much slower growth than the 9.3 percent annual average from the past...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Fifty Years of Indiana Property Tax Policy — 27 June 2024
Indiana voters elected Otis Bowen as Governor in 1972 on a pledge of “visible, lasting and substantial” property tax relief. The slogan...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: What Will Happen When the Social Security Trust Fund Runs Out? — 23 May 2024
Social Security trustees just published their annual report about the program’s finances. They predict that the combined $2.8 trillion...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Envelope from the County Treasurer — 25 April 2024
It was printed in bold letters on the front of the envelope. “Open Immediately. Property Tax Notice Enclosed.” It was the annual...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: A Simple View of the Economy Helps Us Understand Growth — 22 March 2024
People use tools to make goods and services, which other people buy. Gross domestic product is our measure of the value of goods and services. It...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: How Much Will Homeowner Property Tax Bills Rise in 2024? — 22 February 2024
Last year Indiana homeowners were hit with property tax bill increases averaging 17 percent, an extraordinary increase. Will it happen again in...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Farmland Property Taxes May Keep Increasing — 24 January 2024
The memo was posted at the end of December, on the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance website. It announced the base rate for farmland...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Taking Inflation Apart — 19 December 2023
Since then inflation has come down a lot. As of November 2023, prices were 3.1 percent higher than a year before. That’s good news.
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: How Much Will Homeowner Property Taxes Rise in 2024? — 20 November 2023
The second installment for 2023 property taxes was due earlier this month. If you’re a homeowner, either you sent a check to your county...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: How Can a Homeowner Calculate the Cost of a School Referendum? — 26 October 2023
Election Day is coming up, and 12 Indiana school districts have put property tax referendums on the ballot. Voters who own homes will want to know,...
Capital Comments
How Do States Manage Without Individual Income Taxes? — 22 September 2023
Indiana has an individual income tax to help pay for state services. Indiana raises about $8 billion a year from its state income tax, which is 36%...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Supply Chain Pressure is Easing, and so is Inflation — 24 August 2023
The 12-month inflation rate began to rise in early 2021 and peaked at 8.9 percent in June 2022. Since then it’s fallen to 3.3 percent. Not so...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Indiana State Balances and the Pension Stabilization Fund — 26 July 2023
The Indiana fiscal new year is upon us, having begun on July 1. The big New Year’s celebration happened on July 13, with the...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Will the Inflation Rate Keep Falling? — 29 June 2023
Inflation is coming down. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures the Consumer Price Index, reported the 12-month inflation rate for May at...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The General Assembly Delivers Some Property Tax Relief — 24 May 2023
Indiana homeowner tax bills increased 17 percent on average this year, the largest increase in years. Other property owners saw big increases too....
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: An Extra Billion and a Half in State Revenue — 26 April 2023
The state revenue forecast upped its prediction of revenues for the rest of this fiscal year and the coming biennium, 2023-25, by $1.5 billion over...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Property Tax Bills are Increasing a Lot in 2023 — 23 March 2023
Indiana county treasurers soon will mail property tax bills to owners of homes, rental housing, farmland, and businesses. Most will see big...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Solar Energy Projects and Property Taxes — 22 February 2023
Utilities are building a lot of solar energy projects in Indiana. Fields of solar panels will become a common part of our landscape. This may help...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Farmland Property Tax Misery Has Company — 27 January 2023
Farmland assessments for property taxes are going up. So are home, rental housing and business assessments. Property tax misery has a lot of...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: State Revenue Growth Will Return to Normal — 21 December 2022
Thursday, December 15, was a much-anticipated day at the Indiana Statehouse. It was Revenue Forecast Day, when the General Assembly heard the...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Holiday Inflation Cheer — 29 November 2022
The holidays are here. Time for good cheer and happy thoughts, even if candy canes and sugar plums cost 7.8 percent more this year than last.
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Cost of Living Adjustments — 25 October 2022
Inflation has been so low for so long that we hardly noticed them. Now inflation is the highest it’s been in 40 years, and COLAs are in the...
Community
Purdue Extension Educators Share Facilitation Skills with Faculty from Andhra University — 03 October 2022
On September 20, Regional Community Development Educators Tanya Hall and Steve Yoder led a daylong workshop on verbal facilitation skills for a...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Housing Market is Cooling Off — 22 September 2022
The Federal Reserve is serious about battling inflation. They’ve raised their policy interest rate from near zero in February to an average...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Is this a Recession? — 25 August 2022
Is this a recession? Real gross domestic product has dropped for two straight quarters. Real GDP is our measure of goods and services produced,...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: $6 Billion in Balances — 21 July 2022
Mid-July is number-cruncher nirvana if you follow the Indiana state budget. That’s when the State Budget Agency releases its closeout for the...
Capital Comments
Inflation and Indiana School District Budgets — 06 July 2022
The inflation rate in May was 8.6 percent, the highest since the bad old days of the Great Inflation 40 years ago. We’re all paying higher...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Shocked and Not Shocked by Home Assessments — 15 June 2022
Every year about this time homeowners receive a Form 11 from their county assessor. It’s the notice of assessment of land and structures, and...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: The Residential Share of Property Taxes is on the Rise — 05 May 2022
Here’s one way to think about property taxes: The local government sets its budget, subtracts all other tax revenue, and raises the remainder...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: What Will Happen to Inflation? — 22 February 2022
The inflation rate was 7.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022, the highest inflation in 40 years. It arrived suddenly and unexpectedly. A...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: Farmland Assessments will Increase for Taxes in 2023 — 28 January 2022
Farmland property taxes have been falling. Total property taxes paid by agricultural property owners fell 2.3 percent per year from 2017 to 2021,...
Capital Comments
Capital Comments: What Happens to Property Taxes During Inflation? — 04 January 2022
The property tax is the biggest source of tax revenue for most Indiana local governments, and they were worried about the effect of the COVID...
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: We Finally Know How the Recession Will Affect Property Taxes — 29 November 2021
What will be the effect of the COVID recession on the property taxes that fund Indiana local governments? I’ve been thinking and writing...
Community
Community Development Can Help Build Cultural Competence — 07 October 2021
How effective am I at working across cultural differences? Do others see me as culturally competent? One of the key frameworks of the Navigating...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: What Three Forecasts Say About Our Economic Future — 24 September 2021
Where is our economy going? Let’s ask some folks whose job it is to forecast the future of the U.S. economy. How about looking at three...
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: Last Year’s Recession Hits Indiana Local Governments Next Year — 19 August 2021
The National Bureau of Economic Research is our quasi-official umpire of recessions and expansions. Last year it marked the peak of the last...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: Reasons to Celebrate the Indiana Fiscal New Year — 22 July 2021
Happy belated New Year, everyone! I mean the Indiana Fiscal New Year 2022, which started on July 1. The State Budget Agency celebrates the event...
Community
The Value of Good Facilitation — 14 July 2021
Do you help lead groups to accomplish complex tasks and make participatory decisions? Whether you are leading a visioning process, supporting a...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: What Kind of Inflation Problem Do We Have? — 24 June 2021
In May the consumer price index was 4.9% higher than it was 12 months before. The last time we saw an inflation rate that high was July 2008. The...
Community
Registration Open! Community Coaching Learning Circle — 02 June 2021
Purdue Extension Community Development is offering a professional development opportunity for individuals interested in honing their community...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: A State Revenue Forecast for the Ages — 20 May 2021
On April 15, toward the end of the 2021 session of the Indiana General Assembly, the State Budget Committee heard the revised revenue forecast. It...
Community
Podcast
Family
Capital Comments: Pent-Up Demand, Then and Now — 23 April 2021
What can history teach us about the demand for goods and services post-pandemic? Larry Deboer knows.
Community
Rural Indiana Stats Website — 01 April 2021
When you’re looking to make data-driven decisions for local government financing, don’t overlook a great tool from the Purdue Center...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: It's Tax Season. Where Do Your Local Taxes Go? — 19 March 2021
Tax season is coming up. Federal income taxes are due on May 17th this year. The due date for Indiana’s state and local income taxes remains...
Community
Visit the Intercultural Learning Hub — 04 March 2021
The Intercultural Learning Hub (HubICL), powered by HUBzero® [1], is an online collaborative space for researchers, educators, and...
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: Okun, Phillips and Our Economy — 01 March 2021
If you want to be remembered in economics, get yourself a curve. There’s the Lorenz curve, the Laffer curve, the Kuznets curve, and, probably...
Community
A Legacy of Leadership — 08 January 2021
As I write this brief column, I do so with some sadness since I will be officially retiring from Purdue on Feb. 1, 2021. When I came to Purdue in...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: The State Revenue Forecast: We Might be OK — 06 January 2021
Can it be, is it possible, that 2021 won’t be terrible? The state revenue forecast was released on December 16 to provide a starting point...
Community
Podcast
Capital Comments: A Tale of Two Recessions — 09 December 2020
The Great Recession began after the economy peaked in December 2007, and then continued for 18 months through June 2009. It was the longest...
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: Don’t get spun: What’s happening in our economy, right now? — 29 September 2020
Forecasts? Don’t talk about forecasts. You kidding me? I just want to know what’s happening now!
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: Rents, Telecommuting and Harry Potter — 02 September 2020
The wizards in Harry Potter’s Britain use many forms of transportation. Brooms, but also floo powder, portkeys, flying vehicles, the Night...
Community
Fall 2020 Registration for American Citizen Planner Now Open — 05 August 2020
Purdue Extension and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant have opened enrollment in American Citizen Planner – Indiana, an online training course for...
Community
A Graphic Reflection Tool — 04 August 2020
As any great leader knows, in order to lead effectively you must first meet people where they are. Every person’s experiences are different,...
Podcast
Community
Capital Comments: Trouble for Indiana’s State Budget — 04 August 2020
Revenues fell 8 percent below forecast for the year, 23 percent from March through June. We used $850 million in balances to cover that shortfall,...
Community
Local Leaders Explore Property Tax System in Purdue Extension Workshop — 01 April 2020
Purdue Extension provided a free workshop for local leaders to learn about Indiana’s property tax system and explore trends in local and...
Community
Local Government Leadership Workshop Explains Election Process Requirements — 03 February 2020
Lake County Extension collaborated with the Lake County Clerk’s office and the Board of Elections & Registration to present the...
Community
Purdue Extension Land Use Team Launches American Citizen Planner Program in Indiana — 07 January 2020
The American Citizen Planner program, which provides training in core competencies for public planning officials, is now being offered in Indiana...
Community
Tracking 21st Century Diversity in Indiana Counties — 11 December 2019
As globalization continues to chug along and the digital age continues to take hold, communities in Indiana need to adapt in order to remain...
Community
Fostering Economic Stability – Communities Working Together to Drive Progress — 04 November 2019
So often my travels leave me weaving alongside desolate country roads that are sparsely populated and towns that are blighted with empty, dusty...
Community
Purdue Extension Community Development Responds to Needs in Your Community — 03 October 2019
Purdue Extension has offices in all ninety-two counties in Indiana. Through these offices, our educators are able to spend their workdays (and live...
Community
Running for Local Office Seminar Gets Future Local Candidates Ready to Campaign — 01 October 2019
On September 24, 2019, Purdue Extension Community Development educator, Amanda Galloway, and Tippecanoe County Clerk, Julie Roush, presented to...
Community
Extension Invests in Preparing the Next Generation of Community Leaders — 04 September 2019
In the last ten years, Indianapolis has embarked on a positive economic path with initiatives such as the “quality of life” plans,...
Community
Promoting Shared Prosperity and Improved Economic Outcomes in Indianapolis — 08 July 2019
Inclusive growth and the future of work were recent topics at the Community & Economics Leadership Program (CELP), led by George Okantey,...
Community
Effective Business Meetings – Reducing the Stress and Increasing Productivity — 05 June 2019
Raise your hand if you have attended any business meeting that you roll your eyes and think that the meeting is too long? So often, the agenda and...
Community
The Key to Being More Productive? Try Slowing Down — 10 May 2019
In a world where we are constantly asked to have more things completed, assigned more tasks and given more responsibilities, it seems there is a...
Community
Learning Essential Skills to Engage Difficult Conversation — 06 March 2019
Conversations move life forward. They can also stop things from moving forward. Relationships begin and end on conversations. Teams are formed and...
Community
Community Development Educator Honored — 05 February 2019
George Okantey, Purdue Extension Community Development educator in Marion County, was recently named a recipient of the Robert O. Zdenek Staff...
Community
CELP Graduates Making Local and National Impacts — 23 October 2018
Three graduates of the Community Economics and Leadership Program (CELP) recently utilized the education they received through the four-month...
Community
Leadership Daviess County Class of 2018 — 23 October 2018
Community projects are a component of many of the Purdue Extension Community Leadership Programs across the state. The Leadership Daviess County...
Community
With Social Media, Markets are Reaching Much Farther — 23 October 2018
In the scope of society, we have multiple branches of communication. The facets we see depend on our generation, tastes and preferences and where...
Community
A Look at Confined Feeding Operations in Indiana — 30 August 2018
Confined Feeding Operations (CFOs) offer an efficient system to feed and house animals through specialization, increased facility size and close...
Community
Community Economics and Leadership Program (CELP) Graduates Receive Congressional Recognition — 25 July 2018
Nineteen middle managers and millennials from four community organizations, four city government agencies and three nonprofit agencies recently...
Community
Generational titles — why do we even need them? — 25 July 2018
Educate, validate, and elevate our employees so they can be the best version of themselves, help them in this regard to identify opportunities for...
Community
Winners Named for National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals Awards — 28 June 2018
Purdue Extension’s Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing was recently recognized as a national award winner by the National Association of...
Community
Attitudes Influence Change — 27 June 2018
How do communities change? The answer is quite easy. Change is implemented through attitude. Although the answer is easy, getting to that answer is...
Community
Internet Sales Tax — 26 June 2018
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes, even in areas where they have no physical presence....
Community
Huntington County Leadership Academy Graduates Class of 2018 — 26 June 2018
Huntington County Leadership Academy congratulates 17 graduates from the 2018 Purdue Extension Community Leadership class. The group has been...
Community
Leadership Jasper County Graduates Class of 2017-18 — 24 May 2018
Leadership Jasper County graduated the 2017-18 class this week. The Community Leadership Program works to create a network of willing,...
Community
Assistant Program Leader Presents to Community Economics and Leadership Program (CELP) Participants — 22 May 2018
Michael Wilcox, Assistant Program Leader for Purdue Extension Community Development, was the May 10 guest speaker for the Community Economics and...
Community
Reaching Successful Economic Development in the Community — 22 May 2018
The building goes dark, the manager locks the door for the last time, brown paper cascades down windows that once held signs of sales and...
Community
Understanding Indiana’s Local Tax Systems — 25 April 2018
Local government finance is complex and has become even more so since the implementation of the property tax caps in 2008. In 2016, taxpayers...