Porter County’s 2009 tax bills might not go out until late in the year, in turn adding to the costs of paying the county auditor employees for their work on the bills.

A clearly reluctant and frustrated Porter County Council on Tuesday agreed 6-1 to grant County Auditor Jim Kopp an additional $20,000 in overtime for his staff and $15,000 for more part-time pay. Of the overtime, $15,000 has already been accrued, including the hours employees spent this past weekend.

According to the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance, 81 Indiana counties, including Lake County, now have their 2009 tax bills out, with another six nearing the last step. Porter is one of the three counties at the stage where the 2009 budget orders cannot be issued until the auditor’s office certifies the net assessed values. Only LaPorte County is farther behind.

Kopp was reluctant to project a firm date as to when tax bills will be ready, but estimated that they will go out, with enough time for penalty payments, by the end of the year. He also didn’t rule out the need for more overtime and hourly pay later.

County Council member Karen Conover, R-3rd, estimated that with the approval Tuesday, approximately $50,000 will have been spent on the extra pay for the auditor staff -- the equivalent, she said, to the overtime for the sheriff’s department for operating the jail around the clock. Last year, by contrast, overtime in the auditor’s office totaled nearly $25,000, and the year before, $13,000.

Citing the frustrations expressed by local govenrment units mulling a lawsuit against the county for the lack of tax bills, Conover added: “I just want to get it done and get it over with.”

Other council members expressed similar sentiments.

Rita Stevenson, D-2nd, questioned when the council agreed to let the audtior’s office run in the red and build up unpaid overtime with the understanding that “we’ll pick up the tab?”

“I’m tired of the tax bills being held hostage,” Stevenson said.

But Kopp said his employees have been working excessively long hours, with about 12 people putting in full days on both Saturday and Sunday. He also said that he doesn’t have enough staff to allow employees who work more than the standard 35-hour work week to take comp time off, and that his office can always stop working on the tax bills when money runs out.

“I don’t know what to tell you other than we need to get it done,” he said.

Council member Dan Whitten, D-at large, said the council is back to the same problem experienced earlier this year, when the council felt it had no choice but to approve extra overtime and hourly pay in order to make progress on the bills. Sylvia Graham, D-at large, concurred, saying that if the council rejected the funds, Kopp could blame the council for not giving him what he says he needs to get the work done.

Kopp said progress is in fact being made, with numerous corrections made to faulty numbers in the assessment data. The county’s new software vendor, Low Associates, has been working with the auditor’s office in assigning specific tasks needed to get valid and up to date numbers.

It was pointed out that employees from the county assessor’s office have been working on the data as well, but Kopp said that for the most part, the assessor employees are “correcting their own data.” That prompted Whitten to relay a message from County Assessor John Scott, who called Kopp a “liar” if he is suggesting that the delays in the tax bills are due to the assessors.

One of the delays has dealt with the data from the county’s former software system. After the meeting, Kopp gave reporters a copy of an email communication confirming that a back-up tape containing the data, which previously was thought to have been erased, had been found by the Information Technology Services department earlier in the day.

The council decided that rather than approving an additional appropriation for the overtime and hourly pay, it would use an alternative approach suggested by Kopp to tap a line item in his budget for county vehicle fuel expenses. To do so, however, the council first had to deny the original request for an additional appropriation. That prompted a protest from an auditor employee who questioned how the council could expect the employees to work without getting paid, especially after some of them and the commissioners came in over the weekend to check to ensure that they were working.

The final vote, to use the gas line item, passed on a 6-1 vote, with only Whitten voting no, and Conover, Graham, Stevenson, Laura Blaney, D-at large, Mike Bucko, D-4th, and council president Robert Poparad, D-1st, voting yes.

Posted 9/23/2009