Computer Glitches Are Taxing

A change in state law that gave landowners new tax payment options was stressful enough.

But figuring out the accompanying computer program sent Boundary County Treasurer Wilma DeVore to the aspirin bottle.

She and 39 treasurers from across the state last week wrote Gov. Cecil Andrus complaining that computer glitches in the statewide program were so bad they were recording tax payments manually.

“It’s been a headache for all the treasurers,” said DeVore, who oversees tax payments from nearly 10,000 landowners.

Idaho legislators in 1992 voted to let landowners pay taxes monthly instead of half in June and half in December. The State Tax Commission was responsible for designing a computer program so treasurers could make the switch when the law took effect July 1.

To date, it doesn’t work.

“We did fail, there’s no question,” said Henry Nagle, administrator for the commission’s County Support Division. “We had a deadline. We didn’t meet it.”

The treasurers first asked for Nagle’s resignation, but backed down.

Nagle - a former Kootenai County assessor, says his state duties are part watchdog, part county aide, part umpire. He said computer screw-ups were partly caused because the agency used the new law as a chance to revise 600 other computer tax programs.

Thanks to treasurers’ cajoling, State Tax Commissioner Anne Barker extended agency office hours, set up a toll-free hotline for treasurers with computer troubles, hired two crack programmers and approved overtime until the systems are running. The program should be ready Sept. 8.

Kootenai and Shoshone counties were not affected by the bug-ridden program.

In the meantime, frustrated treasurers still must accept payments. Some, like Bonner County Treasurer Karen Weldon, reluctantly turned to other programs.

“We were not able to tell what taxes were due on a parcel,” said Weldon, who answers to 32,000 landowners.

Others, like DeVore, just won’t advertise the change until the system is complete.

“It’d be nice to have it sooner, like tomorrow, but I know they’re doing their best,” she said.