Programming issues cause delays for county tax statements

Leah Betts: Delays in tax statements could have been prevented.

Rick Kessinger: Issues in the process were a perfect storm.

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Delays in receiving tax statements in Greene County stemmed from technical errors as one county office changed software systems, leading to late and sometimes incorrect statements and the resignation of the Greene County collector. It all transpired in a matter of five months.

In November, Greene County Collector Leah Betts announced there would be delays in sending out personal property tax statements due to software issues between her office and the Greene County Assessor’s Office. Betts said the cause of the delay was issues in communication between the assessor’s new program by an outside vendor and the in-house program used by the collector’s office.

Greene County Assessor Rick Kessinger said his office updated its software program at the beginning of 2020 to a new appraisal and tax software by Tyler Technologies (NYSE: TYL).

“We had been using a personal property system that was old, it was antiquated, and it couldn’t do the things we needed it to do to give better service not only to the individual taxpayers but also to our taxing entities,” Kessinger said. “The old system just wasn’t meeting our needs.”

However, the necessary work to make the new and existing programs work seamlessly together was not completed in time to send out the statements, Betts said.

“The county (information technology) department had to make some changes to interpret the data from the assessor’s new program,” Betts said. “They underestimated the size of the project and although they thought they were on track all the way up until the end … when it was time to launch and test, I found that to not be the case. That’s why the statements were late.”

Betts said the program should have been functioning properly by the beginning of October in order to meet typical deadlines of sending out tax statements by the end of the month. They were sent out in mid-December instead.

Once forms were sent out, residents began contacting both offices about errors in their statements.

“I don’t know what the percentage would be, but we were inundated with calls from people reporting on their own that they had issues with their bills having the wrong vehicles or the same vehicle twice – various issues like that,” Betts said.

County officials say those errors were caused by the transfer of data from the assessor’s old program to the new one. Kessinger said his office has corrected errors as taxpayers report them, and some errors were caught and corrected as the process was ongoing.

“I call it a perfect storm,” Kessinger said. “The chances that all the issues or hurdles that were thrown at us would come up in one year, I don’t believe anybody could’ve predicted. It’s just one of those once-in-a-lifetime occurrences – or at least I hope it’s once in a lifetime.”

Late payments
The collection delays mean tax distributions of some $56 million also will be late to the benefiting entities: school districts, libraries and fire departments. About 20% of the roughly $280 million in taxes collected in the county comes from personal property taxes, with the rest coming from real estate, which was sent out and collected on time. Betts said although there will be a delay, the amount collected will be the same.

The only change in the amount of revenue the districts will see is the loss of late fees paid by residents who miss the deadline. These fees have been removed due to the delayed forms, but Betts said the amount is small in the grand scheme of what they receive.

For example, last year Springfield Public Schools received about $26 million in tax revenue, and about $39,000 was from late payment fees from the personal property portion.

Calls to SPS officials were not returned by press time.

Collector position
The county collector’s office will see a shift in leadership for the coming year. Frustrated by the delays, Betts announced her resignation in January, effective Feb. 28. She was first elected to the position in 2014.

Betts said she resigned because she attempted multiple times to call attention to the possible delay without results. After communicating with the IT department directly, she approached the Greene County Commission, which oversees the IT department, in September about the issue.

“I went to the commission, and I said, ‘We have an emergency, and I need your help. We need to do something drastic or my statements are going to be very late,’” Betts said.

Meetings between her office, the assessor’s office, the commission and the IT department took place, but Betts said they did not result in any action to stop the delay from happening.

“I know it was the first time we’ve all been through this, but I was on the other side consistently and constantly asking for help,” Betts said. “I wholeheartedly believe if they had listened to me and heeded my warnings, that this could’ve been prevented. I can’t do my job efficiently because of these roadblocks and therefore I’m not going to do the job because I only want to do my best.”

Her resignation requires a gubernatorial appointment to fill the collector position by March 1.