The Independent-News, Volume 114, Number 39, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 23 February 1989 — Page 2

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- THE INDEPENDENT NEWS - FEBRUARY 23, 1988

STUDENTS PUBLISH STORIES ■ MH! 1 < ry A fba 1 . n '^ * ’ 1 Bi I I Wb JL " ' Wi "4?^ Pictured here. Renee Fisher shares her story with Rachel Long ■ / B i *1 H Km- fMk dHak

Jennifer Bergland and her puppet fnend, share a story with Jenn's sister. Angela Bergland. Sixth grade students at North Liberty have honed their writing skills and published another set of their stones. Happy to share these stories with others, the sixth grade authors paired up with students in pnmary grades to read these onginal works. The younger students enjoyed the stones and illustrations and asked the sixth graders to return again. FALCONS EDGE ARGOS 62-58 ON FRIDAY A pair of free throws with ten seconds left, put the game out of reach for the John Glenn Falcons Fridas night as they came from a first half deficit to top the scrapps Argos Dragons 62-58. The victors was Glenn’s 15th in 19 decisions while the Dragons absorbed their third straight defeat to drop to 10- 7 for the season. The free throw line was again the margin of victory for the Falcons as they hit a fine 17 out of 23 to the Dragon’s 8 of 11 to account for the margin of victory. Argos led the ballgame earls and held leads of 14 10 and 25-21 at both first half stops. Barlow and Johnson each had six first quarter points on three baskets each to push the Dragons to the front. Craig Groves had eight and Winger six points tn the first half to keep the Falcons within reach. Groves coming on two three point baskets and a pair of free throws while the Dragons missed their only free throw attempt in the first half The Falcons took the lead in the third quarter, outscoring their hosts 17-12 to grab a 38 37 lead and the game stayed very tight the rest of the way Charlie Winger, who hit the final two free throws to ice up the win. had 10 of his team high 16 in the second half while Steven Runyan, had 12 of his IS in the last 16 minutes, including six of eight from the line Rick O’Connor also reached double figures getting 10 coming off the bench for Glenn, eight of these coming in the second half. Argos had great balance with four platers in the double figures led by Harlow with 14. Johnwm 1 L Stone 12 and Dennie 11 H«a< Tipper— r VaAet Friday The regular season will cnmc to a

close Friday with a home game against a good Tippecanoe Valley team. Tipoff for the B-Team is 6:?U p.m. Box Score Glenn fg ft fta p tp Winger 7 2 2 4 16 Runvan 3 9 12 1 15 Clifton 1 2 3 0 5 Groves 2 2 2 0 8 Stull 0 0 0 2 0 Traub 20124 Drews 2 0 114 O'Connor 42 2 2 10 TOTALS 21 17 23 12 62 Argos Barlow 6 2 4 5 14 Stone 4 4 5 2 12 Johnson 5 2 2 2 13 Hudspeth 2 0 0 2 4 Middleton 1 0 0 4 2 Dille 1 0 0 3 2 Dennie 4 0 0 0 11 VanderWeele 0 0 0 10 TOTALS 23 8 11 19 58 3-point goals: Glenn 3. Groves 2. Clifton 1; Argos 4. Dennie 3. Johnson 1 Score By Quarters Glenn 10 21 38 62 Argos 14 25 3 7 58 Information On Reassessment For Lincoln Township Most of you have read in the South Bend Tribune about the property re-assessment tax increase due in 1990, and various proposals to ease the burden on taxpayers. Like it or not. we have to live with the increase, since the State Board of Tax Commissioners approved a revision of regulation 17 “Real Property Assessment" which is effective March 1. 1989 for re-asscss-ments payable in 1990. How much however, is another question. In order to help understand how this boost comes about I have pre pared a comparison of an average home using the 19 7 9 schedules, compared with the 1989 schedules, to show the increases which are consistent in pcrecentage whether a home as 960 square feet or 2.000 square feet. Also you need to keep in mind that Indiana does assessment based upon construction costs not market value Now assume a normal single family frame home without air conditioning, or a fireplace, and with one bath. Ihr home is 24 x4O or 960 square feet with a full unfinished basement, and attached frame garage, which is

24'x24’ or 576 square feet. Assume this home was built in 1964, is in an average neighborhood, is moderately attractive, and is constructed with average materials and workmanship, and has average quality interior finish. Further, it is in normal condition for its age with no additions since it was first built. The first figure show n is the 1979 schedule replacement costs The second figure is the 1989 schedule replacement costs The third figure shown in the percent of increase: Living Area. $15,4(X); $26,500; 72%. Basement. $3,900; $8,300; 112%. Garage. $3,000; $5,400; 80%. Reproduction cost. $22,300; $40,200; 80.3%. Depreciation. 25% 15 years; 35% 25 years. True Tax Value, $16,700; $26,100; 56.3%. Divided Bv 3 Assessed Value. $5,570; $8,700; 56.3%. As you can see with no change in the house in this example the home owner has an assessed value increase of 56%. If the home had no basement or crawl space the reproduction cost percent of increase would be 73 percent and the assessed value would be 50 percent rather than 56.3 percent. So you can see what one varable can do and there are many varables such as fireplaces, extra half bath, recreation room. etc. Some homes may not go up as much as shown in this example for a number of reasons, such as the condition of the house has detenated more than normal for its age. or it may be the square footage was measured wrong in the 19 7 9 reassessment as has been found in some cases, or w as not measured at all. In other situations the increase will be more because an addition has been built on the home and not re-assessed during the interim period between 1979 and 1989. or the home is larger than reported in 1979. There are other factors also, all of which can not be covered here. Commercial and industrial improvement schedules have also been increased. For example based upon the property perimeter to area ration commercial increases run from 75 percent to 1”9 percent while industrial operations vary from 76 percednt to 194 percent depending upon the exact type of business operation. Note these are schedule increases and do not allow for depreciation. Land categories for assessment purposes are divided by Residential Platted and Unplatted, Rural Residential Unplatted. Agricultural Land, and Commercial and Industrial Land. County Land Valuation Commissions in each county set land values based on 1985 costs just as improvements were based on 1985 costs. They were instructed to use actual sales pnees of similar land to develop the land costs for reassessment. These costs were then used to set front foot values, homesite values and acreage values. An extensive change was made in the homesite values for the 1990 re-assessment compared with the 1980 reassessment. For 1980 the first acre was valued at $2,500 and additional acres usually as open tillable at $450 an acre. In town for example this allowed a 2 acre unplatted piece of property to be valued at $3,000 while elsewhere in town a half acre platted piece of property would be valued at $3,600 using the front footage method even though both properties had all city services. For the 1990 re assessment Lin coin township’s average Unplatted. Rural Residential and Agri cultural homcsites have been set at $6,500 for the first acre and $1.500 f”t each additional acre up to 5 acres Foot values for Platted Residential lots have been vet at a range from $25 00 per ft to SSO 00

THE INDEPENDENT-NEWS Publication Number 261460 ROBERT E. URBIN, EDITOR & PUBLISHER SUSAN R. URBIN, ASSISTANT EDITOR INDEPENDENT-NEWS CO., INC., PUBLISHING CO. 601-03 Roosevelt Road, Walkerton, Indiana 46574-1294 Telephone (219) 586-3139 PUBLICATION TIME: Thursday of Each W eek COPY DEADLINE: Tuesday, 1:00 p.m. Second Class Postage Paid At Walkerton, Indiana 46574 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: 20‘ Per Copy; $7.00 Per Year (SI.OO Extra If Mailed Out Os State) STUDENTS PERFORM HI " I ■JMI 4 'W ^^^■MMMHHHMMMHHHHHHMhbaw-JBKKBMKBMKB .jhHKHmHHmm

"A Day At The Friend's Mall" was written and performed by Mrs Holland's Class at Walkerton Elementary. Kneeling arc Eric Stafford and Greg Zellers In the back row are Tom Rcnsberger. Kim Phenis and Eric Goodrich. per ft. Platted Commercial and Industrial lots have been valued at SIOO per ft Commercial and Industrial acreage has been divided into four categories Primary (Plant Site) $5,000 • $15,000; Secondary (Parking, Outside Storage, etc.) $3,500 - $10,(XX); Usable Undeveloped $2,000 $4,500; and Unusable Undeveloped $1,500 per acre. For example an average two acre rural residential, agricultural homesite or unplatted town homesite would be valued at $6,500 for the first acre and $1,500 for the additional acre for a total of SB,OOO. Likewise a three acre site in the Industrial Park with a primary plant site of ' « acre and a secondary site of ‘4 acre for parking and outside storage and 2'/i acres usable undeveloped would most likely be valued as follows: primary site $1,2500; secondary site $850; usable undeveloped $5,000; for a total of $7.125. It must be remembered a 56 percent assessed value increase on improvements does not mean a 56 percent tax increase The reason is the tax rate for the township should go down because the maximum levy (the amount of money the taxing unit is allowed to raise) from property taxes is in general frozen. Demands for greater services that could affect higher taxing unit budgets are generally limited to 5 percent increases annually. Therefor, if the township budget is limited and the assessed valuation has substantially increased then the tax rate must come down. More often than not taxpayers taxes go up. although not at the same rate as the assessed values have gone up. There are a number of reasons for this, circumstances may require a taxing unit to have higher budget requirements, or reassessment often finds omitted, undervalued, overvalued or rem«»v ed property that when corrected will result in a fair but higher or lower assessed value for a proper

ty. Approved land commission data was finally received from the State for St. Joseph County on January 25. Consequently some time will elapse while the land portion of the re assessment is completed. In all probability Form II “Notice Os Assessment To Land And Improvements will not be mailed prior to sometime in May Plcasse note Form 11 is a notice of assessed value not a tax bill. Bob Schaeffer Re-assessment Deputy Lincoln Township Elsie Heimer Trustee, Lincoln Township ^K^GED •V ~ 11 - * Mr. and Mrs. Thelmon Fugate, of Koontz Lake, announce the engagement of their daughter. Lori Ann. to Timothy James Jessie, of Hamlet. Mr. Jessie's parents are Floyd and Bernice Jessie, of Hamlet. Lori Ann will graduate from John Glenn in May of 1989, She plans to attend IUSB Mr. Jessie graduated from Ore gon-Davis High School in 1986 He attended Manchester College in North Manchester. He is employ cd with F A F Contracting, of Grovertown A July I wedding is being plan ncd. Ahar Charias Lindbergh made his tory with tha first solo flight across tha Atlantic, ha came homa by ship