The rift between the Porter County Assessor Jon Snyder and Porter Regional Hospital over methods to assess the 430,000 sq. ft. facility at U.S. 6 and Ind. 49 in Liberty Township ended amicably on Friday as the hospital agreed to provide most of the information requested by Snyder’s private appraiser to complete his work.
The two parties met briefly in Porter County’s Circuit Court to announce they came to an agreement late Thursday night in which the hospital will provide all but two of the 28 items for which Snyder had filed a petition of writ for production of books and records earlier this month.
Snyder’s attorney, Christopher Buckley of Gordon Etzler & Associates, said the information the hospital will provide under the terms will be sufficient for the assessor’s office to do its work in a timely manner and thanked the hospital for its cooperation.
“The appraisal will go forward as scheduled,” Buckley told the Chesterton Tribune. “We appreciate the cooperation from Porter Regional Hospital. We know it will be a good corporate citizen that will benefit the community for years to come.”
The county-owned hospital was sold to Community Health Systems of Franklin, Tenn. in 2007 which opened the Porter Regional Hospital facility last August.
County Assessor Jon Snyder hired Jack Poteet of Hospital Appraisal Services later in the fall to calculate an assessed value for next year’s tax rolls based on the hospital’s market value in-use.
Poteet requested specific documents from hospital officials but was turned down due to their concerns about Poteet’s methods of using an entrepreneurial profit assessment approach which they speculated could lead to a higher assessment. Stephen Brandenburg, an attorney hired by the hospital, argued during the July 18 court proceedings that the appraiser’s requests were unnecessary because they were not part of the state’s set guidelines for county assessors.
But in his testimony before Circuit Court Judge Pro Tem David Matsey, Snyder said he believes the state gives county assessors the authority to come up with an accurate and equitable assessment by any means necessary.
Snyder filed a subpoena against the hospital to complete the appraisal by Sept. 1 in time for assessment notices to go out to taxpayers in the fall. He said the hospital assessment is necessary for local taxing units to begin their budgeting this year and to prevent disruption of the yearly taxing process, which has had a record of being on time since 2010.
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