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July 3, 2009

Property tax bills will be late again in Clark County

Clark County improving, with the bills two months ahead of last year

BRADEN LAMMERS

If history serves as notice, you already know your property tax bills will be sent out late this year.

Once again, the Clark County Treasurer’s office expects the bills to be behind schedule, but progress is being made.

Clark County is at least two months ahead of where it was last year in the process of sending out tax bills, said Vicki Hinkle, first deputy at the Clark County Auditor’s office.

The state had the net assessed property value paperwork from the county auditor’s office June 1, she said.

However, the assessed property values were resubmitted last week because of changes that needed to be made in the Tax Increment Financing, or TIF, districts, which restarted the process, said Mary Jane Michalak, director of communications for the Department of Local Government Finance.

“Even though [Clark County] may be behind this year, they are showing a marked improvement from last year,” Michalak said.

Last year, the values were not submitted until Sept. 15, the budget order was certified by the Department of Local Government Finance on Oct. 22 and tax bills were not issued until December, she said.

The bills were so far behind last year that state finance officials were called in during November to assist the county. Local school corporations were forced to borrow millions of dollars to cover expenses as a result of the late property tax billings, according to previous reports in The Evening News.

Three school corporations in Clark County borrowed more than $200 million in the last five to seven years, paying more than $3.5 million in interest on the loans.

“The problem, what we had here when I became auditor in [January] 2008, was the tax bills were a year behind,” said Keith Groth, county auditor. “So what we’re in the process of doing now is getting the tax bills for the fall and the spring collected in the same year.”

The goal for Groth is to get the county back on track by 2010 and have the billing cycle coincide with the Department of Local Government Finance’s statutory guidelines — for bills to be sent out in May and November.

Statewide there also has been improvement. This year, three counties had its bills due in May, compared to only one county that was able to have a May or June due date last year, according to the department.

Much of the blame for the bills being behind schedule has been placed on a fair market value assessment system since it was initiated to calculate property tax rates in 2006.

“Ninety-five percent of counties have been behind in billing,” Groth said.

In addition to the newer value assessment system, each office has to wait on the other before it can begin its part of the billing process.

The process for preparing the tax bills, in an abridged version, is:

The auditor sends the assessed rates of properties to the state; the state returns a preliminary tax rate to the auditor; if the tax rate is correct, the auditor then prepares the rate and the letters before sending them to the treasurer’s office; and finally the treasurer’s office sets a deadline for bills to be in, which must be approved by the state, then mails the letters to local residences.

The state is hopeful the timeline is being streamlined. The passage of the state budget Tuesday included a provision that shortened the notification period for the county auditors to approve the preliminary rate — from about two weeks to 10 days.

The turnaround time for the Department of Local Government Finance this year has been shortened to an average of 39 days, as opposed to 45 days last year, Michalak said.

“We are way ahead of where we were last year in terms of getting tax bills,” she said.

Once all of the steps have been completed and the bills are received by the treasurer’s office, it will take about two weeks for the letters to get to homeowners, said Debbie Peterson, first deputy at the Clark County Treasurer’s office.

Although the county is ahead of last year, no sure date has been set on when Clark County residents should expect their bills.



SO YOU KNOW

• 27 counties have reported a first installment due date in May or June

• 29 counties have reported a first installment due date in July

• 4 counties have reported a first installment due date in August

• On average, it is a two-month improvement of over last year

• Clark County is in the fourth step in the process.

• 75 counties — out of 92 — lead Clark in the process. Only 12 are behind Clark County.

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