From the Bloomington Herald Times:
Another disappointment from the Monroe County Auditor’s Office was announced this week.
This one resulted in the miscalculation of property taxes in the county, leading to incorrect bills being sent to nonprofits and religious organizations that are tax exempt. That meant slightly lower bills to everyone else, which despite how it sounds, isn’t really good news.
...
County government is allowed to raise a specific amount of money from property taxes, and the burden is spread out to all taxpayers after all the assessments and exemptions are calculated and finalized. Those finalized calculations included the bills sent to the nonprofits — which were billed in error and will not have to pay any property tax. Thus, the $990,000 in taxes the county planned to collect from those organizations will not be forthcoming and available for government agencies to use.
...
The nearly 200-year-old structure of county government calls for a tripod structure on financial matters: the assessor, auditor and treasurer. It needs all three legs to stand up.
The auditor’s office leg broke down in this instance, shorting units of government funds needed to provide services expected by the taxpayers. This error piles on top of a list of other issues involving auditor Gerstman — her violation of policy by consistently using a county credit card for personal charges; a State Board of Accounts investigation based on that and questionable claims for a trip she did not take; and her rather free use of public funds to take trips to places such as San Diego and Las Vegas for conferences of questionable value to taxpayers.
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Monroe County’s taxpayers deserve much, much better than they are getting.
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2012/04/21/digitalcity.monroe-county-government-receives-another-black-eye.sto
(this is a paid article)
