Hart County Commissioners to Hold Special Work Session

Hart County commissioners will hold a special work session tonight after their regular meeting to discuss the FY15 budget in light of problems with the collection of property tax revenue.

At a lengthy work session last week, the board heard from Jon Caime about the discrepancy between the amount of property tax revenue the county expects to take in and what they have actually received.

The problem lies with the collection of the 2009 – 2011 property taxes from the 2008 property reval and re-assessment.

Caime pointed out via a chart graph, that the county is expecting to take in about $8.5 million dollars, but is also returning about half of that to property owners who paid too much on their temporary tax bills.

Just over 5,000 property owners are due refunds, and another 1,000 property owners might be due refunds.

That leaves just over $4.5 million in revenue, which must be split with the Hart County Board of Education.

However, Caime said so far, the county has only collected just over $500,000 in property tax revenue – not enough for the county to operate on.

After hearing from Caime, county commission board chair Joey Dorsey called for several actions.,“What I’ve got summarized down for actions:  2009-2011 actual revenues confirmed and actual refunds…will give us numbers and see if they match.”

 Dorsey said he also wanted a status of outstanding refunds and the status of refunds still being held.

Dorsey also requested a summary of issues from the software company the county is using to help with the property tax collection and refunds, “For Harris, some of or all the actions issues, changes that have taken place, and I would like to quantify seeing the dollar amounts for each change, so we can go back and tie those numbers in so we can see where they came from. Because every time you change, there is a new number generated, and , believe me, that is the cause of a lot of confusion and a lot of questions in the community.”

 Dorsey requested the action items be completed and ready for the board to review this evening during their regular meeting.

Tonight’s meeting begins at 5:30p at the County Commission office in Hartwell.