After some initial confusion, Griffith residents’ transition into North Township from Calumet Township is expected to be seamless come Jan. 1, and everyone involved — including Calumet Township — should come out relatively unscathed.
Gov. Eric Holcomb in March 2020 signed into law a bill that allowed North Township to absorb Griffith Jan. 1 if neither its board nor St. John Township’s board themselves voted to absorb it by June 30, 2020.
Per a law written for Griffith in 2012, residents in September 2018 voted 98% to 2% to leave Calumet Township in 2018; both township boards voted against taking it in two months later, and St. John Township ignored Griffith’s offer of $1 million as incentive to take it on.
When it became clear that no one was going to take Griffith willingly, the North Township Trustee’s office reached out to the Lake County Auditor’s Office about the change, Trustee Adrian A. Santos said.
He was concerned that because township property taxes are always paid in arrears — meaning municipalities are receiving their property-tax money from 2020 this year — North Township wouldn’t receive any money from Griffith until 2023.
North Township includes Whiting, East Chicago, Hammond, Munster, Highland and on Jan. 1 will add Griffith.
Communications with the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance fixed that, Lake County Auditor John Petalas said, and North Township will be allowed to absorb Griffith’s assessed value immediately in 2022. Griffith, in turn, is expected to pay around $580,000 a year in property taxes to the North Township versus $2.2 million they said they paid to Calumet Township, and many taxpayers should see a decrease in their property taxes as a result.
Calumet Township, meanwhile, is expected to lose $1.24 million in annual revenue, while the city of Gary will lose $371,000, the Gary Community School Corp. $173,840, Lake Ridge School Corp. $105,830, and the Gary Public Library $39,290, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency’s Office of Fiscal Management and Analysis.
The 2022 tax rate, however, won’t be published until 2022, Ajaz Mohammed, director of financial operations for the Lake County Auditor’s office said. But while the numbers appear brutal for some Calumet Township and Gary entities, the impact won’t be as catastrophic as it might’ve been even five years ago, said Steve Dalton, an accountant with Cender & Company, which handles Calumet Township’s finances.
Between knowing it was a matter of time before Griffith got its way and the two years Senate Bill 365 gave it to prepare, Calumet Township itself will be “back to a balanced budget in all funds within a year,” though it will need to raise its levy because of losing Griffith’s AV, and that in turn throws more circuit breaker onto the City of Gary and the schools.
“We are frustrated to know that in order to keep helping hurting citizens, there are ripple effects on the city and schools,” Dalton said in an email. “(But) Trustee (Kim) Robinson and the Calumet Township Board have worked diligently to get the township ready for this inevitability. We didn’t understand why Griffith wanted to leave, but we are ready for less assessed value. We cut costs and created a lot of efficiencies in order to be prepared to keep helping those most needing help.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
