Under-billed owners to get higher tax bills
Kootenai County property owners will have to cough up a little something extra this year to make up for being under-billed $1.4 million in 2006.
That year, 32 of the county’s 47 taxing districts, such as cities, schools, and fire and water districts, were shorted revenue by an error that occurred when levy rates were calculated.
“It was sort of like going into a grocery store and buying a pop and a bag of chips,” County Commissioner Rick Currie said. “You paid for the pop, but you still owe for the chips.”
In this case, the “shop owner” out the most chips was the city of Coeur d’Alene, which was shorted about $378,000, followed by Kootenai County, which was out about $353,000.
As a result, taxpayers who didn’t even own property two years ago will be tapped this year along with all the other property owners to help make up the shortfall, under a remedy announced by the county late last week.
“There is nothing in statute that addresses an issue like this,” said Kootenai County Treasurer Tom Malzahn. “So we went to the state Tax Commission and asked for help from them as to how to get these dollars back.”
The Tax Commission allowed a one-time adjustment to correct the error, according to a statement from the county commissioners.
Malzahn stressed that this is not a tax increase, but “a make-up of what should have been collected.”
The amount a property owner will have to make up depends on a number of factors, including how many taxing districts divvy up that person’s particular taxes and how much those districts were shorted in 2006.
The owner of a $100,000 property in Spirit Lake will pay $16.30 more this year, while a Post Falls owner will pay $6.40 more. Coeur d’Alene property owners fall in between, at $13.60 per $100,000 of assessed value, while residents of unincorporated Kootenai County will pay between $4 and $6 more.
Malzahn said the 2007 assessment was correct.
The reason for the 2006 error is that when levy rates were calculated, “the values used to generate the levy rates were different than the values used when taxes were sent out,” the treasurer said.
“There was a mistake made, and what we are trying to do now is remedy the results of that mistake,” Malzahn said.
Currie said that part of the problem was a new computer system that wasn’t completely understood, but ultimately it was the assessor’s responsibility.
“We would have liked a different resolution, but the option (the state tax commission) gave us was to do nothing or this process, which is the best scenario,” Currie said.