Wednesday, December 2, 2009

County detects tax snafu

Numbers on bills don’t add up

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If you've noticed that the numbers on your most recent property tax assessment from Blaine County don't quite add up, you're not alone.

While the total amounts charged to property owners are correct, the latest tax bills have errors in the overall mill rate, the amount being paid to the county, and the amount for school budget stabilization.

At a special meeting Monday at the Old County Courthouse, the Blaine County Commission highlighted the mistakes and discussed how best to inform the public.

The Blaine County line item on the tax bills showed an incorrectly high mill rate, which should have been decreased by the amount of the Land, Water and Wildlife Levy mill rate. That caused the stated amount being paid to the county to increase as well.

Commissioner Tom Bowman said the program used to put together the tax bills automatically detected the discrepancy, but mistakenly accounted for it by subtracting the increased dollar amount from the "school budget stabilization" line item.

As a result, the overall amount due is correct, but with an error in the overall mill rate. When the tax is computed correctly, the value of a property multiplied by the mill rate should equal the tax due.

However, Sun Valley Councilman-elect Bob Youngman, who spotted the error and reported it to Bowman, said he noticed that the mill rate and the amount due did not correspond.

Blaine County Treasurer Vicki Dick said both the county and the school district would receive the correct amounts.

Commissioners said that either new bills or possibly letters will be sent to property owners to inform them of the mistakes, but that the taxes are still due as scheduled.

Dick said it could be difficult to send out around 21,000 new tax bills, as there may not be enough remaining tax forms, which are issued through the state.

Commission Chairman Larry Schoen said the commission would look into the cost of sending new bills, as compared to letters or simply notices in the newspaper.

"I don't believe we should compound the error by spending more money," Schoen said at the meeting.

Mike Chatterton, representing the Blaine County School District, said he wanted to make sure that taxpayers understand that because the amount on their bills for the school stabilization budget is unnaturally low, it will look as if they are being taxed more next year, which is not the case.

"It's not a problem as long as we can show what the tax levy rates should have been this year," Chatterton said.

Jon Duval: jduval@mtexpress.com