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April 8th, 2011

Skagit County Commissioners concerned with Assessor's Office errors in tax collection

SKAGIT COUNTY - Skagit County Board of Commissioners Chairman Ron Wesen and Skagit County Administrator Tim Holloran met last week with Skagit County Assessor Don Munks to discuss revenue shortfalls due to failure to collect tax revenues on new construction in Skagit County.
"This is a serious issue that needs to be resolved quickly," said Wesen.

The Commissioners Office has requested that Munks provide more detail in regards to the oversight and accurate assessment of the lost revenue. The Skagit Valley Herald stated that between $50 million and $113 million of new construction was not logged into the database; this means between $110,000 and $249,000 in taxes were not collected from Skagit County taxpayers this year.

The Assessor's Office received a letter of non-compliance from the State Department of Revenue on February 1, 2011. The Skagit County Commissioners were not made aware of this letter or the non-compliance situation until it was published in the Skagit Valley Herald on March 26.
"New construction is an important part of County revenue and this is a serious oversight that needs to be corrected as soon as possible. We are willing to work with the Assessor's Office to provide the necessary tools to ensure this does not happen again. However, we will not let this situation pass without scrutiny," said Commissioner Dahlstedt.

The Commissioners Office would like to address some questions, including:

• Why was new construction information not logged into the database?
  
• When did it become apparent that this oversight took place?
  
• Will the Assessor's Office collect the taxes not assessed as new construction?
  
• How will this affect other Skagit County taxpayers?
  
• What 2011 revenues will be lost due to this error?
  
• What corrective action is necessary to prevent this from happening again?

It is important to let our constituents know how they will be affected. We need to know if significant changes in tax collection may result in any taxpayer being responsible for additional burdens," said Commissioner Sharon Dillon.

In a meeting with Munks, Wesen, and Holloran, Munks primarily attributed the error to a shortage of staff and computer programming issues.
"The first step is to determine the scope and scale of the problem," said Holloran. "We're more than willing to work with the Assessor on structure and protocol to prevent this from happening again."

The Commissioners offered to bring in an independent organizational specialist to complete a review of the Assessor's Office to determine if a shortage of employees is, in fact, a cause of the problem. The review would analyze the workflow process and employee workloads, and subsequently suggest appropriate organizational adjustments. It would also determine the effectiveness of overtime and scheduling in the Assessor's Office. Munks has accepted this offer.

"We need to make sure that we are following the law," Commissioner Wesen said. "The Board of County Commissioners will do all we can to improve the functionality of the Assessor's Office to make sure that property assessments are fair, accurate, and timely once again."