~Dr. Larry DeBoer August 25, 2022   Is this a recession? Real gross domestic product has dropped for two straight quarters. Real GDP is our measure of goods and services produced, adjusted for inflation, and the United States is producing less now than it was at the end of 2021. Usually that’s exactly what we …

~Dr. Larry DeBoer July 21, 2022     Mid-July is number-cruncher nirvana if you follow the Indiana state budget. That’s when the State Budget Agency releases its closeout for the previous fiscal year. This year the glorious day fell on Friday, July 15, and we learned one astounding fact: At the end of June, the …

~Dr. Larry DeBoer June 21, 2022 The inflation rate in May was 8.6 percent, the highest since the bad old days of the Great Inflation 40 years ago. We’re all paying higher prices. So are our school districts. School districts face some costs that increase as prices rise, and other costs that don’t. Food, fuel …

~Dr. Larry DeBoer May 24, 2022   Every year about this time homeowners receive a Form 11 from their county assessor. It’s the notice of assessment of land and structures, and it shows the previous assessed value of the home, and the new value for taxes payable next year. I’m a homeowner, and I got …

~Dr. Larry DeBoer March 30, 2022   Here’s one way to think about property taxes: The local government sets its budget, subtracts all other tax revenue, and raises the remainder with the property tax levy. The assessor measures the value of all the parcels of taxable property inside the boundaries of the government. Then the …

~Dr. Larry DeBoer February 22, 2022   The inflation rate was 7.5 percent from January 2021 to January 2022, the highest inflation in 40 years. It arrived suddenly and unexpectedly. A year ago the inflation rate was 1.4 percent, which was lower than the 1.7 percent average rate over the previous decade. It’s an unwelcome …

~by Dr. Larry DeBoer January 28, 2022   Farmland property taxes have been falling. Total property taxes paid by agricultural property owners fell 2.3 percent per year from 2017 to 2021, mostly because of lower farmland assessed values. But farmland prices are rising. A Purdue Agricultural Economics survey showed that average farmland selling prices increased …

~by Dr. Larry DeBoer January 4, 2022   The property tax is the biggest source of tax revenue for most Indiana local governments, and they were worried about the effect of the COVID recession on property tax revenues. But rising home values in 2020 will increase assessed values for tax bills in 2022. The federal …

~by Dr. Larry DeBoer November 29, 2021   What will be the effect of the COVID recession on the property taxes that fund Indiana local governments? I’ve been thinking and writing about the possibilities for a year and a half. Now we have enough data to answer that question. No spoilers, though. Let’s consider what …

~by Dr. Larry DeBoer October 20, 2021   Americans are having fewer children. Reports this past summer showed that the birth rate dropped in 2020, to 56 births per 1,000 women age 15 to 44. Only 5.6 percent of women in their child-bearing years had babies. Early indications for 2021 showed a further decline. Birth …