From the LaPorte Herald-Angus:
A nearly $500,000 settlement has been reached with the contractor who performed the reassessment in La Porte County which resulted in millions of dollars in uncollected tax revenue.
The La Porte County Commissioners on Wednesday voted in favor of a settlement agreement with the Nexus Group for $450,000.
Originally, the Zionsville-based property tax consulting firm sought more than $900,000 for work in assessing commercial and industrial properties that went unpaid.
That work was in addition to the highly contested residential property tax reassessment work that Nexus was compensated for by the county.
La Porte County Attorney Shaw Friedman said the case was quickly approaching trial but was averted by a deal struck during a recent mediation session between the two sides involved in the legal dispute.
“Candidly, there was not any evidence that would support the prior county officials’ claims that Nexus had not performed pursuant to contract and had not delivered a product pursuant to contract,’’ said Friedman.
Mark GiaQuinta of Fort Wayne, the attorney for the Nexus Group, said the 2006 reassessment figures presented by his client after numerous challenges turned out to be accurate.
GiaQuinta said there was a ‘’perfect storm’’ of factors that for several years kept the property tax reassessment from officially entering the books.
Initially, he said there was the challenge by lakefront area property owners accustomed to low assessments shocked after the change to a fair market value system drastically increased their taxable values.
GiaQuinta said the switch to a fair market value system was complicated and on two separate occasions the state ordered a review of the reassessments.
‘’Incompetency’’ and dirty politics at the state level were other factors cited by GiaQuinta in the reassessment delays that resulted in official tax bills not going out for several years.
Accurate bills from 2006 were first distributed last year and the county is expected to be caught up with the billing by the end of this year.
In the meantime, local governments and schools had to pay millions of dollars from interest on loans taken to operate due to the delays in receiving full tax revenues.
‘’It’s time to put this thing behind us so we can focus on the future,’’ said La Porte County Commissioner Vidya Kora.
http://www.heraldargus.com/articles/2013/02/07/news/local/doc511304d4235df871833171.txt
