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Faust to address Daphne City Council on property tax errors
Planet Election Guide: Property tax hike
Bradford to host meeting Thursday on property tax

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Faust to address Daphne City Council on property tax errors

Posted: 04 Apr 2010 06:27 AM PDT

By Russ Henderson

April 04, 2010, 8:25AM

Baldwin County Revenue Commissioner Teddy Faust

DAPHNE, Ala. -- The county's head tax man on Monday will give the City Council the bad news he's already had to give nearly 140 county residents: due to mapping errors, some of them more than a decade old, the office will be charging property owners for two years' back taxes.

"Two years is the minimum required by law. We could have gone back further, but we felt that wouldn't be fair," Baldwin County Revenue Commissioner Teddy Faust said Friday. "Property owners won't be happy about it. Needless to say, we weren't too happy about it either."

The amounts will vary from more than $1,000 to less than $500, depending on the value of the home and the local tax rate, he said.

Daphne officials said they did not know yet how much revenue the city had lost as a result of the omissions, nor did they know how much revenue they will earn when the property owners pay the two years' back taxes.

Faust, who took office in October, said that similar omissions were discovered in one area of the TimberCreek subdivision last year, when Phil Nix was still revenue commissioner. The extra taxes were simply added onto those property owners' bills, he said. The mistakes have led to a review of the entire county tax map, he said.

"This time, we wanted to give some advance warning to the council and the residents of Daphne and the other areas affected," Faust said.

Councilman Derek Boulware said he was grateful that Faust will talk to the council personally on Monday.

"We appreciate the personal touch," Boulware said.

Last month, Faust's office sent letters to about 140 county property owners, informing them that their property hadn't been properly entered into the county's property maps.

In most cases, municipal annexations weren't recorded, he said.

As a result of the mapping errors, the owners were charged as if they were county residents only -- city taxes and other special levies were left out, Faust said. In some cases, the owners hadn't paid a year or two of municipal taxes. In other cases, it had been more than a decade, he said.

"We think that, during the time the county was growing at such a rapid pace, the mapping department just got overwhelmed, not that there's any excuse," Faust said.

Acting on complaints from a few taxpayers, revenue office staffers this year discovered that several property owners living in Daphne's Canterbury Place subdivision had never paid the city's 1 mill tax, Faust said.

Boulware said he was "disappointed" that "this has happened in Daphne twice inside one year."

"I want to make sure this doesn't happen again," Boulware said.

In Gulf Shores, a group of Craft Farms subdivision residents hadn't paid city taxes in years. Some property owners living north of Stapleton had never paid an additional 2 mills that help support North Baldwin Infirmary in Bay Minette that their neighbors paid, he said.

The letters sent last month informed those residents that the lapses had taken place, but did not include the amounts of back taxes they will have to pay, Faust said. Those bills are being calculated and will be sent in the coming weeks, he said.

The bills will be due Dec. 31.

"They will have the rest of the year to pay it," Faust said.

"I especially hate it for people who only recently moved to Canterbury Place," Boulware said. He said he'd asked Faust whether an exception could be made for those recent residents. Faust said it would be illegal to do so.

Faust said that his office is continuing to review records to find whether other Baldwin County properties were improperly recorded.

"It's about 140 so far. There may be more," he said.

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Planet Election Guide: Property tax hike

Posted: 04 Apr 2010 08:12 AM PDT

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Bradford to host meeting Thursday on property tax

Posted: 04 Apr 2010 06:20 AM PDT

By Brendan Purves
Associate Editor

With tax day on its way State Representative Matt Bradford, D-70 district, wants taxpayers to talk about everyone's favorite kind of tax – the property tax.

Bradford will be hosting a property tax town hall meeting Thursday, April 1 at the Skippack Township Building to discuss the issue of increasing property taxes, and to start a discussion that will get all of the key players involved in creating a solution to this growing problem.

"I want to start a real dialogue about how the commonwealth can fix [property taxes]," Bradford said.

When the economy dipped and home values dropped in 2008, school districts were forced to increase millage rates to compensate for the drop in assessed value, Bradford said. Because of this, seniors and first time homebuyers have been finding it difficult to pay the tax bills being levied for homeowners.

"It's particularly harsh on seniors and those on fixed incomes," Bradford said. "It keeps young families from buying their first homes."

According to Bradford's Web site the state needs to take some of this burden away from the taxpayers by helping to fund the school districts that have been forced into increasing property taxes for residents.

To help begin to work on a plan to solve this problem Bradford will be bringing in experts and representatives from different cross sections of the community including the a representative Pennsylvania School Boards Association, Gov. Ed Rendell's head of educational policy, the head of the Commonwealth Foundation, local school board members and board members and supervisors from local municipalities.

"If you are going to get serious about it, you're going to have to get buy-ins from all parts of the community," Bradford said about bringing leaders together at the Thursday town hall meeting.

In addition to key players in government, Bradford is hopeful that taxpayers from all across the 70th district show up to voice their opinion on the issue.

Bradford believes that it is important to have residents from all across the district because the district stretches from urban areas like Norristown into the suburbs and then into more rural parts of Montgomery County like Lower Salford Township.

"I think that my district is really unique in the conversation because of its diversity," Bradford said.

Once all of the parties come together, Bradford's goal is to work towards getting a consensus opinion on the issue, at which point the hard work in Harrisburg will begin for himself and the other state representatives.

"It's going to be a heavy lift," Bradford said about effecting real property tax change in Pennsylvania.

Although this could be a tough road to walk, Bradford is committed to seeing this issue through, and does not want it to be an election year stance.

"I don't just want to talk about it during election season," Bradford said.

The situation may be grave for some of Bradford's 70th district constituency, but he is hopeful that through an open dialogue of ideas and solutions, the state will be able to achieve property tax reform so that all Pennsylvanians will have the option of home ownership.

"With great adversity," Bradford said. "There can be great opportunity."

The town hall meeting will be Thursday, April 1 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Skippack Municipal Building, 4089 Heckler Rd., Skippack.

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Property Tax

Sunday, April 4, 2010