SHELBYVILLE – Here's a notable "Man Bites Dog" story to round out 2018: Republicans took over the Shelbyville Township Board in 2017 and now the Board is sending out $735,000 in rebate checks to 2100 property owners.
Too much money in the hands of elected officials? So much they're returning on average $350 to the households that paid too much in over the years?
That's what's happening, and it's something the previous Board members said last year never would happen.
Melvin Rodman, a longtime Democratic trustee, said the Democrat incumbents lost because of rumors and the Republican slate’s promise to lower taxes.
“I don’t think they’ll lower taxes or wages,” Melvin Rodman, a former longtime Democratic trustee told the Shelbyville Daily Union after he lost his seat to a Republican. “The things they promised — they ain’t going to happen.”
However, rebate checks are in the mail. Shelbyville Township has just mailed out more than $735,000 in rebate checks to taxpayers as part of the Township Board’s efforts to reduce unnecessary expenses and to be more accountable to taxpayers.
Last May, the Board approved giving back $735,461 to property owners in the form of a property tax rebate. The money represents excess funds in various township accounts and money from five township funds the Board voted previously to eliminate.
“We understand that there is no perfect way to distribute the excess funds that had accumulated in the various Township Funds,” said Michael Holland, Shelbyville Township Supervisor. “By statute, we are able to have a maximum of only 2.5 times the average expenditures over the previous three years in each township fund. Formulating the rebate amount based on the net tax payable per land parcel in Shelbyville Township was considered the most equitable solution to remediate those excess funds.”
A recent state law State Rep. Brad Halbrook sponsored (HB 1896) places a cap on the accumulation of Township funds, other than the Capitol Fund, to 2.5 times the average annual expenditure [of each fund] of the previous three fiscal years. Even after rebating $735,461, Shelbyville Township funds will have just over $800,000 in cash on hand.
“We are delivering on a promise to rebate this money to Shelbyville Township property owners. The checks, as they say, are ‘in the mail,’” Holland said. “We have sent out checks to about 2100 different property owners. The checks are based on the amount of taxes each property owner paid. The rebates were based on a formula of the most current EAV’s (Equalized Assessed Value) provided to us from the County Supervisor of Assessments office divided by the total amount of the rebate funds.”
Shelbyville Township property owners do not have to fill out any forms to get the rebate checks. “The amount of money in some of these funds were as much as five times as what the funds are legally allowed to have,” said Shelbyville Township Trustee Tom Fleshner. “Giving this money back to the property owners is the legal thing to do. I will keep working to make sure the Shelbyville Township Board continues to be accountable to the taxpayers we serve."
