by Jennifer Tangeman
Despite a software hold up, tax bills in Cass County will be back on schedule this year for the first time since 2002.
The county’s treasurer, Dawn Connor, said she started printing the bills Sunday and expects they will be mailed by the end of this month.
“We’re back on track from where we had gotten off track about seven years ago,” Connor said.
She explained the county fell behind in its billing because of trending, which she described as a “mini reassessment” process completed by the auditor’s office.
Connor said the treasurer’s office was ready to print bills last week when she was informed by the county’s software vendor that a piece of legislation regarding the over-65 circuit breaker credit was going to be corrected.
“Our software vendor programmed the over-65 circuit breaker credit the way they interpreted the statute,” the treasurer said. “And it was not the intent of the legislature, so this county had calculated everything and was ready to print bills, but we were at a stand still.
“At that point, I didn’t know how long we would have to wait.”
As it turned out, the software program was corrected the same night, and the treasurer’s office was only delayed two days.
Connor said if the public had not been following the legislative changes they would not even know about the small delay. Bills should be mailed as expected.
Connor said it was her goal to get the county back on schedule for a number of reasons.
“It’s important first and foremost for taxing units,” the treasurer said. “They need to receive their first-half distribution in order to have a decent June balance and budget for the next year.”
Units like the city, school corporation, library and county have been getting a late first installment for years.
“If we have a delayed collection in the spring, and then don’t have another tax draw until June 30, they don’t have a significant cash flow,” Connor said.
By statute, the tax payments are due May 10 and November 10 of each year. For the past seven years, the county has been granted an extension to push back its first payment.
Another reason the treasurer wanted to get back on track, she said, was for the taxpayers.
“For those people that have paid property taxes for years and were used to the schedule for years, it causes confusion being behind schedule,” Connor said.
Finally, Connor wanted to avoid provisional tax bills now being created by some counties.
A bill passed unanimously at the end of January requiring counties that cannot mail their tax bills on time to mail a provisional bill that is to be paid in two equal installments on the normal spring and fall dates.
“I am dead set against the provisional bill, so our goal was to avoid that by getting bills out on time,” Connor said. “It is an incorrect tax bill that we then have to reconcile. It is confusing to tax payers and it is costly because we’re doing two mailings instead of one.”
Local property tax payers should expect to see their bills in early April.
• Jennifer Tangeman is a reporter for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached at 574-732-5148 or jennifer.tangeman@pharostribune.com.
