Photo provided Ginny Whipple receives the 2025 Assessor of the Year award at the Association of Indiana Counties (AIC) Conference.
Bartholomew County government was well represented at the annual Association of Indiana Counties (AIC) Conference, where two office-holders were honored by their peers.
Bartholomew County Treasurer Barb Hackman was elected as president of the AIC and will assume the role Nov. 1. In addition, Bartholomew County Assessor Ginny Whipple was selected by her peers as the 2025 Assessor of the Year.
Hackman came to the county commissioners meeting on Monday to give kudos to her colleagues. She also mentioned that Bartholomew County Recorder Tami Hines was in charge of running an affiliate meeting during the conference for the state’s recorders.
The conference is a nonprofit that aims for the betterment of county government, and serves networking and informational functions for office-holders. The AIC works as a liasion between counties, lobbies the Indiana General Assembly and provides training to county employees statewide.
Aside from networking, those attending the conference held workshops and discussed social security, artifical intelligence, cybersecurity, and Senate Enrolled Act (SEA) 1, along with the resulting changes to local government finance.
“The best part of the whole evening was when I had my former boss, my friend and mentor Sue Paris, that was able to come down and be a part of it and to support me,” Hackman said. “… This coming year should be very busy.”
Whipple is in her second term as county assessor. She began her assessing career in the Decatur County Assessor’s Office in 1984. Whipple worked for a mass appraisal firm for 19 years and then started her own company in 2006 before running for election in 2018. In 2013, she began working for the Bartholomew County Assessor as a vendor, developing values for Lew Wilson, a former county assessor.
Whipple is a Level III Certified Indiana Assessor and designated by the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) as an Assessment Administrator Specialist. She won the IAAO Member of the Year award in 2011 and named by the IAAO as the Clifford B Allen Most Valuable Member Award in 2020. Whipple is Certified as an IAAO Senior Instructor, sits on the IAAO Board of Directors, is AIC and the Indiana County Assessor’s Association (ICCA) Southeast District President and sits on both the AIC and ICCA Legislative Committees.
