Equipping community members and organizations with effective leadership tools and skills
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...
How do we know if a recession has started? Sometimes it’s obvious. In March 2020 during the pandemic emergency, weekly applications for...
Indiana voters elected Otis Bowen as Governor in 1972 on a pledge of “visible, lasting and substantial” property tax relief. The slogan...
Social Security trustees just published their annual report about the program’s finances. They predict that the combined $2.8 trillion...
It was printed in bold letters on the front of the envelope. “Open Immediately. Property Tax Notice Enclosed.” It was the annual...
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...
Last year Indiana homeowners were hit with property tax bill increases averaging 17 percent, an extraordinary increase. Will it happen again in...
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...
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.
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...
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,...
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%...
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...
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...
Inflation is coming down. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which measures the Consumer Price Index, reported the 12-month inflation rate for May at...
Indiana homeowner tax bills increased 17 percent on average this year, the largest increase in years. Other property owners saw big increases too....
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...
Indiana county treasurers soon will mail property tax bills to owners of homes, rental housing, farmland, and businesses. Most will see big...
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...
Farmland assessments for property taxes are going up. So are home, rental housing and business assessments. Property tax misery has a lot of...
Thursday, December 15, was a much-anticipated day at the Indiana Statehouse. It was Revenue Forecast Day, when the General Assembly heard the...
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.
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...
On September 20, Regional Community Development Educators Tanya Hall and Steve Yoder led a daylong workshop on verbal facilitation skills for a...
The Federal Reserve is serious about battling inflation. They’ve raised their policy interest rate from near zero in February to an average...
Is this a recession? Real gross domestic product has dropped for two straight quarters. Real GDP is our measure of goods and services produced,...
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...
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...
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...
Here’s one way to think about property taxes: The local government sets its budget, subtracts all other tax revenue, and raises the remainder...
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...
Farmland property taxes have been falling. Total property taxes paid by agricultural property owners fell 2.3 percent per year from 2017 to 2021,...
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...
What will be the effect of the COVID recession on the property taxes that fund Indiana local governments? I’ve been thinking and writing...
How effective am I at working across cultural differences? Do others see me as culturally competent? One of the key frameworks of the Navigating...
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...
The National Bureau of Economic Research is our quasi-official umpire of recessions and expansions. Last year it marked the peak of the last...
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...
Do you help lead groups to accomplish complex tasks and make participatory decisions? Whether you are leading a visioning process, supporting a...
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...
Purdue Extension Community Development is offering a professional development opportunity for individuals interested in honing their community...
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...
What can history teach us about the demand for goods and services post-pandemic? Larry Deboer knows.
When you’re looking to make data-driven decisions for local government financing, don’t overlook a great tool from the Purdue Center...
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...
The Intercultural Learning Hub (HubICL), powered by HUBzero® [1], is an online collaborative space for researchers, educators, and...
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...
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...
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...
The Great Recession began after the economy peaked in December 2007, and then continued for 18 months through June 2009. It was the longest...
Forecasts? Don’t talk about forecasts. You kidding me? I just want to know what’s happening now!
The wizards in Harry Potter’s Britain use many forms of transportation. Brooms, but also floo powder, portkeys, flying vehicles, the Night...
Purdue Extension and Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant have opened enrollment in American Citizen Planner – Indiana, an online training course for...
As any great leader knows, in order to lead effectively you must first meet people where they are. Every person’s experiences are different,...
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,...
Purdue Extension provided a free workshop for local leaders to learn about Indiana’s property tax system and explore trends in local and...
Lake County Extension collaborated with the Lake County Clerk’s office and the Board of Elections & Registration to present the...
The American Citizen Planner program, which provides training in core competencies for public planning officials, is now being offered in Indiana...
As globalization continues to chug along and the digital age continues to take hold, communities in Indiana need to adapt in order to remain...
So often my travels leave me weaving alongside desolate country roads that are sparsely populated and towns that are blighted with empty, dusty...
Purdue Extension has offices in all ninety-two counties in Indiana. Through these offices, our educators are able to spend their workdays (and live...
On September 24, 2019, Purdue Extension Community Development educator, Amanda Galloway, and Tippecanoe County Clerk, Julie Roush, presented to...
In the last ten years, Indianapolis has embarked on a positive economic path with initiatives such as the “quality of life” plans,...
Inclusive growth and the future of work were recent topics at the Community & Economics Leadership Program (CELP), led by George Okantey,...
DEI Indy earned the second highest team, out of a total of 28 teams, for the North Central region at the Impact Collaborative summit in Atlanta. As...
Eighteen staff from Purdue Extension and the College of Agriculture met at the Wright Forestry Center from May 21-22 to participate in a...
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...
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...
Conversations move life forward. They can also stop things from moving forward. Relationships begin and end on conversations. Teams are formed and...
George Okantey, Purdue Extension Community Development educator in Marion County, was recently named a recipient of the Robert O. Zdenek Staff...
Three graduates of the Community Economics and Leadership Program (CELP) recently utilized the education they received through the four-month...
Community projects are a component of many of the Purdue Extension Community Leadership Programs across the state. The Leadership Daviess County...
In the scope of society, we have multiple branches of communication. The facets we see depend on our generation, tastes and preferences and where...
Confined Feeding Operations (CFOs) offer an efficient system to feed and house animals through specialization, increased facility size and close...
Nineteen middle managers and millennials from four community organizations, four city government agencies and three nonprofit agencies recently...
Educate, validate, and elevate our employees so they can be the best version of themselves, help them in this regard to identify opportunities for...
Purdue Extension’s Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing was recently recognized as a national award winner by the National Association of...
How do communities change? The answer is quite easy. Change is implemented through attitude. Although the answer is easy, getting to that answer is...
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled internet retailers can be required to collect sales taxes, even in areas where they have no physical presence....
Huntington County Leadership Academy congratulates 17 graduates from the 2018 Purdue Extension Community Leadership class. The group has been...
Leadership Jasper County graduated the 2017-18 class this week. The Community Leadership Program works to create a network of willing,...
Michael Wilcox, Assistant Program Leader for Purdue Extension Community Development, was the May 10 guest speaker for the Community Economics and...
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...
Local government finance is complex and has become even more so since the implementation of the property tax caps in 2008. In 2016, taxpayers...
Congratulations to the 2018 class of Leadership Vigo County, a program provided by Purdue Extension Vigo County, who graduated last month! The...
Competitive grant proposals are an increasing key revenue source for nonprofits, educational institutions and local governments. One indicator of...
‘Leader’ is defined as a person to guide a way by going in advance. Leadership is an important function of management, which helps to...
In a globally connected world, access to the internet can link people to a variety of resources that can be of value in their daily living, such as...
Hiring employees from various backgrounds, cultures and experiences leads to workplace diversity. The vast majority of employers view diversity as...
No one likes to sit through a bad meeting. Many of us can point to things we don’t like about the meetings we attend that are not productive:
This post is a part of our Local Government book club series. Join us in reading A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the...
This post is a part of our Local Government book club series. Join us in reading A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the...
This post is a part of our Local Government book club series. Join us in reading A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the...
This post is a part of our Local Government book club series. Join us in reading A Good Tax: Legal and Policy Issues for the Property Tax in the...