Last year at this time, local governmental units in many Indiana counties, including Porter County, had to work on this year’s budgets without the benefit of even knowing last year’s final numbers. This time around might be different.

The Indiana Department of Local Government Finance issued an order on Friday extending the normal Sept. 30 deadline for local budget adoptions to Dec. 1. The offer to delay the budget cycle extends to all local units of government, such as counties, cities and towns, libraries and schools.

It remains to be seen which local taxing units in Porter County will opt for the delay.

The Porter County Council is scheduled to start its multiple weeks of budget hearings on Monday of next week. Porter County Council President Bob Poparad, D-1st, said there are no plans to delay the budget hearings, noting that the budget calendar has already been published and council members have already adjusted their schedules.

The Duneland School Board, however, might opt for the delay. Duneland Superintendent Dirk Baer said school officials were told by the DLGF that the extension only applies to the school general fund, not other school funds supported by property taxes.

Accordingly, Baer said Duneland will likely proceed as scheduled with its budgets for the Capital Projects Fund and transportation funds. But he said the administration’s recommendation to the school board will be to delay the approval for the general fund.

“We’ll let the board decide how we want to handle that,” Baer said. The extra time might allow the school board to have more complete financial information from this year with which to approve next year’s budget, he said.

The school board is expected to discuss the matter when it meets Tuesday at 6 p.m. at the Administration Center.

In a press release, DLGF Commissioner Cheryl Musgrave said the extended budget deadline will give local officials the option of giving themselves more time to plan their 2009 budgets.

By law, the DLGF is to certify tax rates and budgets by Feb. 15. However, because of various delays, in part due to changes in the state’s assessment methods, many Indiana counties, including Porter County, didn’t get their tax rates and budgets certified by that Feb. 15 date last year or this year.

To date, 60 counties have received complete budget approval for this calendar year, versus 57 by August 1 of last year, the DLGF said. That means that in many Indiana counties, the local taxing units are functioning without knowing for sure how much they can spend this year. Porter County is among the 32 counties that does not yet have final 2008 budgets.

Posted 8/4/2008