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Gov. Braun brings property tax bill discussion to Evansville

Gov. Braun brings property tax bill discussion to Evansville

Yahoo08-02-2025

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WEHT) – Indiana Governor Mike Braun says the number one issue he's heard from Hoosier residents is about high property taxes. During a discussion with two people who live and work in the Evansville-area, the governor said Senate Bill 1, a proposed property tax relief bill, would cut tax rates.
'When we wanted to set it back to 2021,' says Governor Braun, 'that was with emphasis on helping the most vulnerable homeowners, which would be those newly into the arena, and retired elderly.'
Braun says the bill would provide relief to those homeowners, but those opposed fear the cuts that could come to cities and school districts. A pair of protesters outside of Braun's Evansville meeting say they are also concerned with a lack of transparency.
'Why didn't we know about it and how come we can't go in,' asks Evansville resident Barbara Rodenberg. 'Right, why can't we be a part of this conversation,' adds Amanda Rodenberg. 'It's in our library.'
Figures available on the state General Assembly website shows over the next three years, school districts could lose millions in property tax funding, including the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation, which could lose an estimated $20 million. 'You'd have to divide $20 million by a figure to see if that's 1 or 2 percent,' says Governor Braun. 'A lot of those numbers don't mean anything unless you put it into perspective of what percentage is that.'
Evansville Mayor Stephanie Terry says these proposed cuts would be 'devastating'. She says the city alone could lose just over $7.5 million in 2026. 'At the top of the list when we talk about where our property tax revenue is going, over 50 percent, between 50 to 60 percent, is for public safety. Our police officers, our firefighters,' explains Mayor Terry. 'There would be some tough decisions that would have to be made.'
Mayor Terry says she will return to Indianapolis to meet with other mayors to discuss the bill's impacts, with hopes of sitting down with Governor Braun. 'I was hopeful that I was going to get 10 minutes of the Governor's time today while he was here in the city,' says Mayor Terry, 'but he left before our scheduled appointment.'
Click here to read the full text of Senate Bill 1.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Karen Brinson Bell's departure from her post as North Carolina's top election official was hardly unexpected. For nearly a decade, lawmakers had sought to restructure the state's election apparatus to strip appointment power away from the governor — an office which Democrats have won in the last three elections despite Republicans maintaining strong majorities in the General Assembly. After five attempts were foiled by courts or voters, the sixth proved successful. The state's appellate courts allowed a new law to take effect transferring appointment power over the State Board of Elections away from the governor and toward the newly elected Republican auditor. So when the board's new Republican majority voted last month to replace Brinson Bell with Sam Hayes, a lawyer who had worked for the state's top lawmakers, it didn't come as a surprise to her. 'You know when you're in an appointed position that it can always come to an end,' Brinson Bell told The News & Observer in an interview. 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While state lawmakers had voiced concerns with the board before, hostilities reached a tipping point in 2020, Brinson Bell said. As President Donald Trump spread false claims of voter fraud nationwide, North Carolina dealt with its own challenges to voting. Prior to the election, an advocacy group had sued the elections board over its mail-in voting rules, arguing that voters needed more opportunities to get their ballots in given the COVID-19 pandemic. The board (which at the time had three Democrats and two Republicans) unanimously agreed to a settlement with the group that allowed the state to accept mail-in ballots up to nine days after the election and gave voters more opportunities to fix issues with their ballots. To this day, state lawmakers refer to this as a 'collusive settlement' and list it as one of the primary reasons the board needed to be changed. 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The board's response to Helene won the agency a national Clearinghouse Award from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — its fourth such award during Brinson Bell's tenure. But shortly after a national election in the wake of a massive hurricane, Brinson Bell had one more unexpected complication to deal with, one that would not be resolved until the very day the board voted to oust her. After all outstanding mail-in and provisional ballots from the 2024 election were counted, Republican Supreme Court candidate Jefferson Griffin came in 734 votes behind Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs. The state proceeded to two recounts, which are standard procedure for a close election such as this one. But both affirmed the result. Rather than ending there, a novel and chaotic legal battle erupted. Griffin, alongside the NC GOP, challenged the validity of over 65,000 ballots cast in the election. Targeting a variety of longstanding voting and registration practices, Griffin sought to toss out tens of thousands of votes — potentially flipping the race in his favor. After six months of courtroom fights, Griffin conceded the race after a federal judge appointed by Trump decisively ruled against him. His concession came just as the election board's new Republican majority prepared to vote on replacing Brinson Bell. She alluded to the challenge in her farewell message, telling the attendees who stuck around after the board adjourned that she hoped election workers could be 'rewarded for their work, rather than vilified by those who don't like the outcome.' 'I hope we return to a time when those who lost elections concede defeat rather than trying to tear down the entire election system and erode voter confidence,' she continued. 'And I hope we recognize that the conduct of elections is the very core of our democracy.' Since taking over as director last month, Hayes has mostly worked behind the scenes. The new board has yet to meet since it voted to select him as director, and Hayes has not issued any press releases — other than the one announcing his hire. But changes are sure to come to the state's election processes under his leadership. While Griffin's effort to overturn his election loss is dead, the board is working to implement changes to the state's election policies based on the arguments he made. Griffin's main challenge argued that over 60,000 voters who didn't have a driver's license or Social Security number in the state's registration database should have their votes thrown out. Those identification numbers are required by a federal law called the Help America Vote Act, which includes exceptions for voters who do not possess either form of identification. The Trump administration sued over the issue late last month, asking a judge to order the state to fix the discrepancy within 30 days and cancel the registrations of any voter who does not provide the missing identifications. Hayes said he plans to work with the administration to address the problem. 'We don't need a lawsuit to tell us what's right,' he said. Voters with missing identification numbers will receive a mailing from the board informing them of how to fix it, Hayes said. If they don't respond, they will be contacted by phone and email. Instead of outright canceling the registrations of voters who don't answer at that point, Hayes said the voters would be flagged in the system to provide the missing information the next time they show up to vote. While Brinson Bell agreed that earlier registration practices were unclear pertaining to the HAVA numbers, she said Griffin's challenge of the election results was unnecessary and damaged trust in elections. 'It conveys such inaccurate information (and) a lack of understanding,' she said about the challenges. 'Just by filing it, you're sowing those seeds of distrust.' But Hayes shifted blame to the former board. 'I think failing to collect the information required by HAVA undermined trust in the 2024 election results,' he said. Collecting that information won't be the only change under Hayes. Despite being exempt from the state's voter ID law in the past, military and overseas voters will have to provide identification in future elections to have their votes counted in state and local races. This was another issue Griffin had sued over, though he only challenged voters registered in Democratic-leaning counties for this part of his complaint. While his effort to have those ballots canceled was unsuccessful, courts agreed with him that these voters should be subject to the ID requirement going forward. Changes could also come from the state legislature through the budget process. The House's budget proposal would add seven new employees to the State Board of Elections who would be exempt from the State Human Resources Act — essentially making them political appointees. Brinson Bell said this move could chip away at the agency's independence. 'You're losing the established public servant who works for the state, who works for the voters,' she said. ' And now inserting someone or individuals who — that's not who they answer to — they answer to that person who appoints them.' Hayes confirmed that he requested this change be added to the House budget, saying it would give him staffing flexibility. It isn't the only staffing change he's made. Shortly after taking office, Hayes hired Brian LiVecchi as his chief of staff — a position that had not previously existed in the agency. LiVecchi previously served as chief of staff to former Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. He resigned in the midst of Robinson's gubernatorial campaign after bombshell reporting from CNN tied Robinson to a series of sexually explicit and disturbing online comments. Hayes said that most other agencies have a chief of staff and that he chose LiVecchi because he has a 'wealth of experience in election law and administration that will be of great benefit to the agency.' Amid this change, an audit is likely coming. Hayes said he asked Boliek — who appointed the board's members — to conduct a performance audit of the agency. 'It will help us determine where we need to spend energy and resources in the future to ensure we are efficiently fulfilling the many duties and responsibilities of this agency and providing the best possible service to voters, candidates, and the 100 county boards of elections,' Hayes said. As for Brinson Bell, she plans to continue working on elections — though she isn't sure exactly how, yet. Her husband calls her 'the busiest unemployed person he's ever met,' she said, as she continues to connect with election directors across the country and share advice on best practices. To her successor, Brinson Bell also has one piece of advice as he assumes the role of elections director for one of the country's most consequential swing states. 'He should never forget that he is now the caretaker of democracy,' she said. 'And that's a pretty big charge.'

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