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  Evansville City Council Looks to Change Homestead Tax Credit

      reported by CHELSEA KOERBLEN

The Evansville city council is looking to change the county’s homestead tax.

While that resolution was withdrawn at Monday’s city council meeting, it’s not the end of the discussion.

Council will bring it back up in a meeting before November 1st, to get it passed.

“I personally believe we can not afford eight percent of our homestead tax credit,” said city councilman Dan McGinn.

In 2015, Evansville joined nine other Indiana counties offering a homestead tax exemption to homeowners. City council chose the highest homestead tax allowed by the state, eight percent.

For example, if someone in Vanderburgh County owes $1,000 in property taxes, with the homestead tax credit they would only have to pay $920.

McGinn says, the decision to have the homestead tax at eight percent, something he did vote in favor of, was “election exuberance.”

“I wish I voted against it,” said McGinn. “Because it caused us some financial issues with some problems because it costs us $450,000 to $460,000.”

Vanderburgh County is the only county in Indiana that offers the full eight percent homestead tax credit.

Allen County, where Fort Wayne sits, is the second highest at 7.0404%

“Let me tell you folks,” said McGinn. “We can not afford that, I’ll tell you that upfront.”

Council has until November to change the current homestead tax credit.

McGinn says they plan to use a new formula to decide the new percentage the tax credit should be. He hopes it will be lowered to around six percent.

“That may allow us to keep all of our police and all of our firefighters and all of our road crews on,” said McGinn. “Which is something we need to do.”

Indiana Counties that have a Homestead Credit:

  • Allen – 7.0404%
  • Marion – 3.0844%
  • Miami – 2.6280%
  • Monroe – 3.4820%
  • Perry – 2.3328%
  • Posey – 5.4261%
  • St. Joseph – 5.8243%
  • Spencer – 4.4136%
  • Tippecanoe – 3.4022%
  • Vanderburgh – 8.0000%
Warrick County Power Plant Deals Major Setbacks

A Warrick County Power Plant is dealing with some major setbacks after a coal silo collapsed Sunday.

The incident has caused severe damage to the F.B. Culley Power Plant owned by Vectren.

Two of the main units, Culley Two and Three, were out of commission for most of Sunday. Culley Two was back up and running by 4 a.m. Monday.

Culley Three that produces 270 megawatts of electricity will not be able to run for the next four to five weeks.

Vectren says if it continues to have problems, it will turn to Alcoa and other power plants in the Tri-State for assistance.

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