County tells Garfield to not pay taxes ... yet

Garfield residents should not pay their taxes just yet.

Initial statements to Garfield taxpayers said they owed a total of more than $20.09 per $1,000 of assessed property to various taxing districts. That number should be $17.49, said County Assessor Joe Reynolds.

A programming error in the new software used by Whitman County’s treasurer and assessor offices put the overage on the Garfield tax bills, said Reynolds.

Since those statements hit the mail last week, the courthouse and Garfield city hall have been flooded with calls from residents questioning the higher rate.

County Treasurer Bob Lothspeich has set up an automated telephone message to answer inquiries. The message says Garfield and St. John are collecting double because they had no street levies in 2009.

While that’s true in St. John, Garfield’s increase is a different story.

“We didn’t double our taxes,” said Garfield Mayor Jarrod Pfaff. “We just have a street levy this year.”

The margin of error on the statements amounts is about $2.60 extra per $1,000, said Reynolds. Reynolds guesses the new county software accidentally doubled the street levy collection.

Reynolds said he and Lothspeich ran sporadic accuracy checks with the TerraScan system, but for some reason Garfield did not pop up in the random sampling.

Courthouse staffers are now working with the Nebraska software company, TerraScan, to resolve the problem.

Lothspeich said Garfield property owners should disregard those initial tax bills and wait to pay first half taxes until they receive correct versions. Once in receipt of the correct statements, Garfield landowners will have 30 days to submit first half payments.

Garfield’s street levy for 2009 taxes was voted down in 2008, and the Park and Recreation Department did not get a levy on the 2008 ballot.

Those two events were responsible for decreasing Garfield property taxes in 2009. This year, taxes shot back up $4.86 to the $17.49 figure.

The Garfield $55,000 street levy amounts to nearly $2.64 per $1,000. Voters gave the levy 72 percent approval last spring. Next year’s levy measure is again up to voters this year, with ballots hitting the mail this weekend.

Garfield’s annexation into the county library district added another $.50 per $1,000 onto the tax bill.

St. John taxpayers have also seen an increase on their tax bill.

The town’s $90,000 street levy and $110,000 sewer levy, approved last spring by voters, is double the normal rate.

St. John missed the deadline to get those proposals on the 2008 ballot for 2009 taxes, and as a result set a higher rate for 2010 taxes to make up the difference. Voters approved in 2009. The two approved levies total $6.04 per $1,000 assessed property.