Who says Indiana is cheaper

[juddling]

House Valued Accidentally At $400 Million

Creating Budget Shortfalls For City

 

(CBS) VALPARAISO, Ind. A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana.

 

An outside user of Porter County's computer system may have triggered the mess by accidentally changing the value of the Valparaiso house, said Sharon Lippens, director of the county's information technologies and service department. The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch.

 

City leaders say Porter County Auditor Sandra Vuko overvalued the home. They believe it something as simple as a typo.

 

County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million.

 

Lippens said her agency identified the mistake and told the county auditor's office how to correct it. But the $400 million value ended up on documents that were used to calculate tax rates.

 

Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall, and the city loses $900,000.

 

Officials struggled to figure out how the mistake got into the system and how it could have been prevented. City leaders said Thursday the error could cause layoffs and cost-cutting measures.

 

For the city, it means some projects, like sidewalks, may be postponed in an effort to avoid job cuts.

 

“The sky is not falling, but it’s cracked,” said Valparaiso City Administrator Bill Hanna.

 

Lippens said the outside user changed the property value, most likely while trying to access another program while using the county's enhanced access system, which charges users a fee for access to public records that are not otherwise available on the Internet.

 

Lippens said the user probably tried to access a real estate record display by pressing RED, but accidentally typed RER, which brought up an assessment program written in 1995. The program is no longer in use, and technology officials did not know it could be accessed.

 

The county treasurer said his office spotted the $400 million error after it caused an improper billing, but apparently it wasn't corrected elsewhere.

 

"It didn't get fixed all the way," Murphy said.

 

 

 

Great Googly-Moogly.....

[southsider2k5]

I know I just paid $26 to renew my licence... 4 years ago it was $8.

[Felix]

Great Googly-Moogly.....

The first thing that comes to my head when I read that was "Nanook Rubs It"

 

I'm a sad, sad person

[NorthSideSox72]

Some even better quotes in the Trib article from Saturday:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...1,7037574.story

[Rex Kickass]

The first thing that comes to my head when I read that was "Nanook Rubs It"

 

I'm a sad, sad person

 

Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

[Felix]

Is that a real poncho or a Sears poncho?

I mean, is that a mexican poncho or a Sears poncho?

 

That's one of my favorite songs of his