Rensselaer Journal, Volume 12, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1902 — TOWNSHIP ASSESSORS. [ARTICLE]

TOWNSHIP ASSESSORS.

Movement on Foot to Secure Raise of Salary of Officers. The township assessors of the state held a meeting at Indianapolis last week. The assessors organized and elected officers, making a permanent association, the immediate object of which is to secure legislation at the approaohing session of the* general assembly that will make the office of assessor a more lucrative one. Seventy-five per cent of the counties in the state were represented. The association was of the opinion that the pay of the assessor should be classified in conformity with the population. And as a result of this feeling a legislative committee was appointed for the purpose of undertaking to secure the adoption of a bill changing the laws governing the work of the assessors so that they will get more money. At present the assessors reoeive $2 per day for sixty days in townships under 25,000 population; in townships of 25,000 or over they receive salaries- of from SI,OOO to $1,500 per year, the exact amount being fixed by the county council. The compensation in townships under 25,000 is wholy inadequate, in the opinion of the assessors, and the bill {he legislative committee will prepare will provide that the assessors are to be paid from $2.50 to $5 per day for sixty days in all townships under 5,000, and in townships of from 5,000 to 25,000 they are to be paid graded salaries not to exceed 1,500. The legislative committee was given fall power to aot for the association and another meeting of the state organization may not be called until after the legislature adjourns. The township assessors now in office were elected two years ago for a term of four years hence if the change in the law they desire is made this winter they will receive the advantage ot the increase in salaries for the remianing two years of their terms, unless there is a provision in the bill that it is not to take effect until the present incumbents go out of officet