By ANN HINCH

Associate Editor

INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Farm Bureau (INFB) leaders aren’t letting any grass grow under their feet – or snow accumulate on their boots – in preparing their membership for the new annual state legislative session.

Last week, INFB President Randy Kron and others hosted its 10th Legislative Kickoff to inform members about the organization’s priorities for the Statehouse this year and give them opportunity to talk to some lawmakers in attendance. This will be a busy session for the General Assembly, which is considering a new two-year budget it must pass by April 29.

Expanded broadband internet access to rural areas is on the INFB agenda once again. Director of State Government Relations Justin Schneider said now that legislators no longer question if rural expansion is necessary to the state’s economy, the work is in figuring out the mechanics of paying for the infrastructure.

Last fall, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced allocation of $100 million out of the Indiana Department of Transportation’s Next Level Connections toll budget for rural broadband. The message INFB wants farmers to take to their lawmakers, Schneider said, is that while this is positive, additional state investment in the infrastructure may be needed in the future.

He also said voters should urge lawmakers not to “allow undue restrictions to be put in place that limits the successful expansion of broadband.” This includes faster administration of funding, which INFB thinks should be overseen by the state Office of Community and Rural Affairs.

Another general priority of INFB is to urge legislators to “incentivize rural revitalization by enhanced economic development strategies with a long-term vision.” It will be monitoring bills filed this session and asking lawmakers to consider if the measures foster opportunities and support for rural areas, as well as how they impact those communities.

Schneider said restoring the Kankakee and Yellow rivers is another priority. Flooding of thousands of acres of nearby farmland last year brought the issue to the fore yet again. He said the legislature is looking at changing the makeup of river basin commissions to fewer members, having less political and more technical backgrounds with knowledge of water engineering issues.

Yet another INFB priority is to reduce municipalities’ extraterritorial authority. This means removing towns’ and cities’ ability to make laws outside their borders, such as making changes to waterways, having ability to restrict pumping water from an aquifer and regulating conduct and property use within a few miles of the border.

Schneider said these are within county governments’ jurisdictions and, as such, should be handled by those officials. This issue has come to light again most recently with towns passing ordinances to prohibit nearby wind farms not within city limits.

“There is a lot of opposition already brewing to this,” he said of trying to make this change at the state level. One argument he’s heard is it’s an effort to get rid of “home rule,” which he said it is not.

The underlying concern, he explained, is that a city making such regulations outside its borders limits a county’s ability to keep or attract businesses and create economic development opportunities. The INFB feels it’s only a matter of time before cities try to begin to regularly regulate outside agricultural activities.

“We want there to be local control, but there should be one layer of local control” in any given jurisdiction, said Ryan Hoff, general counsel for the Assoc. of Indiana Counties (AIC). It has been working with INFB on this issue. He called cities imposing laws outside their borders “regulation without representation,” since county residents can’t vote for those officials or ordinances.

Fairer tax burdens

Another 2019 priority for INFB is improving property tax assessment uniformity. It says members across Indiana are seeing inconsistencies in assessment of similar property features depending on the judgment of each county’s assessor, and that the state assessment manual is not being applied fairly. One example is classifying land under a livestock barn as commercial instead of agricultural in some places.

A related issue is the reality of local jails needing upgrades or replacement because of state decisions to house more prisoners at the local level instead of in state penitentiaries. The INFB says since this is a state decision, the state should be helping more with this funding and not putting the increased burden on local farmers and other property owners.

A different kind of tax bill also has INFB and AIC concerned. Hoff said “dark box” assessments are being successfully used by large chain retailers to lower their property tax bills on new buildings and therefore shift the financial burden for the shared public services they use to local residents instead.

He gave the example of a new Meijer store opening in Boone County that asked the Indiana Tax Court to assess its property closer to the depreciated value of a much older, shuttered retail property instead of a new facility.

He said AIC’s and INFB’s position is that new stores should be assessed as new, and reassessed as they age or sell to second-users to correctly adjust the tax burden, rather than getting a big break from the outset of construction.

“It’s not like these stores aren’t using local (tax-paid) services,” he said, adding one state senator is working on legislation about this right now.

Another issue focusing on the idea of taxes are governmental fees for permits, such as for water drainage or construction. Hoff cited a situation in which Hancock County landowners successfully argued to the Indiana Tax Court last year that a stormwater fee charged by McCordsville was a “tax” and not a “fee.”

The problem, he said, is if this argument is made against other types of governmental fees, would these newly-regarded “taxes” be subject to caps like other kinds of taxes? Also, nonprofits that are exempt from taxes but not from such fees could argue they shouldn’t have to pay these anymore – as the fee revenue is used toward local services, again, he said this is a case where the shortfall in funding would be passed on to local residents’ taxes.

Other INFB priorities this year include more funding for rural schools and ag education programs; trying to persuade the legislature to allocate more toward the $52 million second phase of a new veterinary teaching hospital at Purdue University (the first phase has been funded by university reserve funds and donor gifts); and supporting a provision in Holcomb’s budget proposal to allocate funds for a new swine barn at the state fairgrounds.