Assessor Pins Tax Error On New Software

Thu., May 20, 1999

By Dan Hansen danh@spokesman.com

(From For the Record, May 27, 1999): Cost figure wrong: A computer error by the Spokane County assessor’s office will cost landowners 25 cents for every $100,000 in assessed property value. A story on May 20 incorrectly said the cost would be higher.

The computer maxim “garbage in, garbage out” apparently doesn’t apply to a recently discovered error affecting Spokane County taxpayers.

Assessor Sadie Charlene Cooney says her staff entered the right numbers for a voter-approved property tax used to buy land for conservation purposes.

But the county’s new tax software, Ascend, made inaccurate assumptions about the type of levy, Cooney said.

As a result, the computer charged taxpayers an extra one-quarter of a penny for every $1,000 in assessed property value. That will net the county $46,000 more this year than it should collect.

County officials plan to correct the error by collecting less next year. Deputy Assessor John Sweetman said the computer glitch is easily corrected, now that officials know it exists.

For a $100,000 home, this year’s error will cost the owner $2.50 more than authorized by voters. A recent Spokesman-Review story incorrectly stated the difference was 25 cents.

The newspaper error was human-caused.

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