Lake County's plummeting home values are contributing to county government's expected $20 million budget deficit next year.
Lake County Assessor Hank Adams told a workshop meeting of the County Council on Tuesday residential real estate plummeted across the county, but nowhere as deep as Gary, where home values dropped 74 percent between 2004 and last year, according to Greater Northwest Indiana Association of Realtors data.
Times staff writer Keith Benman reported the decline in home values earlier this summer.
Adams said houses dropped 65 percent in East Chicago, 48 percent in Hammond, 22 percent in Merrillville and 15 percent in St. John recently, too. The communities with the least reductions were Highland, with only an 8 percent downturn, and Crown Point and Schererville at only 7 percent.
Adams said these lower real estate values translate into fewer taxes to fund government services under the state's circuit-breaker system.
He said lower values push local tax rates higher if local government doesn't reduce spending. Higher tax rates push taxes up, but no higher than an individual's home at 1 percent of its assessed value, 2 percent for farms and rental housing and 3 percent for business and industry.
Every dollar protected by the circuit-breaker system is lost to city, town, township and county government.
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