News release from the Allen County Auditor:
Local Government Proposed Budgets on Web
(August 3, 2015) – The Allen County Auditor’s Office wants to make sure that County residents are aware of a new service available regarding local government proposed budgets for 2016.
Under Indiana Law political subdivisions (governmental units) are now required to publish budget and tax levy information for the following year on the Internet. The Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF) has created a specific website, BudgetNotices.IN.Gov, at which all of this information can be obtained. Instead of having to go and retrieve the information, citizens can sign up for email alerts notifying them when certain political subdivisions have set their public hearing and adoption meeting dates. Allen County Chief Deputy Auditor Nick Jordan notes, “The process is pretty straightforward and eliminates the need for citizens to try to find the right contact information of each political subdivision they are interested in or trying to guess which day the ad will appear in the newspaper.”
Upon visiting the website noted above, citizens can search for governmental units either by county or using a specific property address. Using the county search function will return results for all those units within the county, compared to the property address search function that will list only those units that have taxing jurisdiction on the specific property address. Once results are displayed, citizens can sign up for email alerts for to follow the status of the governmental units they would like to follow. Specific detailed instructions are provided on BudgetNotices.IN.Gov.
“This service further increases the transparency of local government to its citizens and may make the budget process more meaningful. Many times local governments hold public hearings and adopt budgets without input or attendance from even one citizen. In years past, citizens may have had to search through multiple days of newspapers to find their political subdivisions budget advertisements. Now they can be sent to your inbox with minimal effort.” said Jordan, speaking of the BudgetNotices.IN.Gov website.
Those unable to access the online budget advertisements, may call the Auditor’s office at (260) 449-7241 or the DLGF at (888) 739-9826 for information on local government budgets within Allen County.