KING WILLIAM RESIDENTS SPARK AUDITS OF COUNTY’S FLAWED TAX COLLECTION
KING WILLIAM — With 150 acres of land and several historic buildings to renovate on his property, King William resident Bob Hubbard knew he was in for a challenge. But when he realized his property assessment did not reflect its categorization, he didn’t expect he’d have to wait six years to fix it.
When he took the problem to the Commissioner of the Revenue’s Office, he said he was told he missed an opportunity to appeal and as a result, would pay more in taxes on land that was estimated higher than its worth.
Hubbard said he accepted the decision but it left him thinking: how many other people have experienced the same thing?
“I just accepted it and went on,” Hubbard said. “But then I began to hear from other people, situations where their property was not correctly categorized. Of course, all this information is online, so I went online and looked.”
After speaking with more people and looking at county records, Hubbard said he realized several
residents were affected by incorrect assessments, and his own neighbors weren’t paying their property taxes on time.
“When you get people that haven’t paid in 25 years, that’s a problem,” Hubbard said. “That’s an entire generation and the county needs tax money.”
He began reaching out and hearing from folks who shared similar problems. So, he set out to fix it. Working tangentially with other county residents, Hubbard spoke with his district supervisor in May, asking the county to take a deeper look at the Treasurer’s and Commissioner of the Revenue offices.
After Hubbard came forward in May, several residents joined him in speaking out. Speaking during board meetings, residents sparked the county’s inquiries, resulting in performance audits on the Treasurer’s Office and the Commissioner of the Revenue’s Office. The move is a first for the two constitutional offices in King William.
During the board’s July public comment period, King William resident Jacob Levy discussed his concerns with delinquent taxes andhis struggle with the Treasurer’s Office.
While Levy said he fell in love with a fixer-upper home in the county, he worried the adjacent, neglected lot would hurt his property value.
When he spoke with Treasurer Harry Whitt, he said he was assured the property would be sent to collections and auctioned off. So he purchased the home. Now, after nearly five years, he is still asking the office to send it to collections.
“We’ve done expensive repairs to our home, we’re active in the community, pay taxes on our home on time, actively vote and partake in community cleanups,” Levy said at the meeting. “Every 30 to 60 days I follow up with the Treasurer’s Office and in short, still nothing.”
Levy’s neighbor, the owner of the property, died at least 30 years ago, according to Hubbard. For years, neighbors paid the property taxes in hopes of claiming the lot after five years, following former state codes.
After several years, neighbors quit paying the taxes, so it has sat for years, with no taxes being paid on the property. After several unsuccessful attempts to get the property to auction through the Treasurer’s Office, Levy addressed the issue with the Board of Supervisors in July.
While Whitt said he hasn’t sent properties to auction or to collections because the county can still make money from the penalties and interest, Levy said by waiting, the county is not collecting any revenue.
“If this is done with 25% of the nearly 400 lots that are delinquent, wouldn’t that help with the budget when last meeting there was a lot of talk of financial shortcomings for the county?” Levy asked at the meeting.
Levy also said that not collecting taxes sends the wrong message to citizens and will inevitably hurt their property value.
“Without ever selling these properties, you’re also encouraging your residents to not pay your taxes or pay whenever you feel like it, which I do not believe is a precedent you want to set,” Levy said. “I understand it’s about dollars and cents for the county, but it’s more than that for the residents. A lot of these dilapidated properties cause depreciation.”
Hubbard reached out to Supervisor Ed Moren in May.
“What possible reason does the county have for not requiring taxes to be paid? I’m thinking that as more residents realize you have an option to pay taxes or not, this will become a huge issue. Why not nip it in the bud before it gets worse?” Hubbard said in a May 4 email to Moren.
Mo rent hen reached out to County Administrator Bobbie Tassinari asking if she could look into the matter.
“How would you recommend approaching the Treasurer’s or the Commissioner of Revenue’s office on this and other similar properties for which I’ve received emails for? Wondering how prevalent is this throughout the county and how should we attempt to resolve?” Moren said in an email to Tassinari on May 5.
On May 11, Tassinari said she requested a report on all the delinquent properties and outstanding balances, and for Treasurer Whitt to provide an explanation on his procedures and methods.
Whitt addressed the Board of Supervisors at its June meeting.
“You can turn it over to an attorney, but I do it on a case-by-case basis,” Whitt said of the delinquent properties in previous reporting. “You get more penalties and interest.”
But Hubbard and Levy weren’t satisfied with Whitt’s response.
“He has said that the county makes more money by charging interest and penalty fees for people that don’t pay. He said where else can you invest money and get 10% every year guaranteed?” Hubbardsaid. “He’s right. It’s a great investment. But, if you never get the money, you’re like, wait a minute, this only makes sense to a point.”
In mid-June, the county, under advisement from Tassinari and County Attorney Andrew McRoberts, began a financial probe of the two offices.
In its initial findings, the county found the Treasurer’s Office has not collected $2 million in delinquent property taxes on 400 properties dating back 30 years.
Additionally, Tassinari ordered performance audits on the constitutional offices. Tassinari presented the Treasurer’s Office’s preliminaryaudit report at the Board of Supervisors’ August meeting.
The preliminary audit, conducted by Robinson, Farmer, Cox and Associates, found 21 problem areas including poor bookkeeping, several bank accounts open at several banks and improper tax collection.
Whitt, who was not available Tuesday for comment, said previously it was unfair to release the performance audit before the full report.
“Well, another thing, preliminary audits shouldn’t never be released to anybody before the final audit comes out,” Whitt said in a phone interview. “I didn’t have to agree to it. I could’ve told them, ‘No, you’re not going to do it,’ but that’ll make you look bad.”
The county is continuing its investigation. Commissioner of the Revenue Sally Pearson refused to participate in the audit onher office, so the company will continue its performance audit under a limited scope.
“I am declining an exercise in futility,” Pearson, who was not available for comment Tuesday, stated in a Sept. 2 email sent to county Finance Director Natasha Joranlien. “To use more taxpayer dollars to have the outside auditors repeat their efforts in hopes of finding something the current County Administrator could cast negativity on, is not only useless and a waste of tax payer dollars, it’s an abuse of power.”
The preliminary audit for the commissioner of revenue’s office will be presented at 7 p.m. Sept. 28 during the Board of Supervisors meeting at 180 Horse Landing Road. The full audit on both offices will be presented in October.