Tax estimates lead to fixes
County updates tax calculations, mailing addresses
Corrections to errors in estimated tax statements to property owners, along with updated mail addressing, should help her office ensure a smooth process when tax bills go out in December, Ward County Auditor Devra Smestad told county commissioners Tuesday.
“We consider these estimated tax statements a great tool statewide. It gives everybody an opportunity to look at them, find those errors so things have a chance to be corrected. It also gives us an opportunity to update any wrong addresses so when we come around to sending out actual statements, we have those corrections made,” she said.
Minot Public Schools had raised concern when the estimated tax statements showed a tax figure for the district that was lower than what school administration had provided to the county. The administration anticipated a 2.16-mill decrease, and the estimate was 9.56 mills.
Smestad said there also were errors in amounts listed for the City of Minot and for certain townships that failed to certify excess levies, which caused those township tax estimates to be too low. Legal notices were published to correct errors in the estimated statements.
In Minot’s estimated taxes, the county inadvertently missed the city’s equipment purchase portion of the capital improvement levy. Instead of being 119.21, the city mills should have been 121.81. On a $200,000 home, this equates to an estimated increase of about $24, according to the legal notice published.
Estimates could change as taxing entities finalize their budgets in a couple of weeks.
After receiving mail forwarding notices from the post office, the county updated addresses for 300 property owners. The post office returned another 300 letters as undeliverable. Smestad said in checking the addresses, some of them were correct so letters were resent.
Commissioner Alan Walter reported that a meeting set up with a postal service representative to discuss local mail service had to be canceled. The meeting had been arranged after he contacted the state’s congressional delegation. Walter said he plans to contact the congressional delegation again if he does not hear by the end of the week about a rescheduled date.
“I get comments every place I go about mail service and the problems it has,” Walter said.
People who still have not received their tax estimate letters should contact the county auditor’s office. Tax information also can be found online at wardnd.com in the property tax section of the auditor/treasurer department.
County commissioners also decided against billing other taxing entities for mailing costs of the estimated tax statements. State law allows counties to bill other entities for their proportionate share of the cost. Smestad said it cost just under $17,000 to mail 34,000 statements, of which $6,959 is billable to other taxing entities.
Commissioner Jim Rostad, who also is president of the Minot School Board, moved to receive and file the auditor’s report. The motion served to close the matter of billing other entities, but before passage, the motion was amended by commissioners to clarify that no other entities will be billed.
Commissioner John Fjeldahl noted the county was obligated to mail 34,000 statements showing county’s estimated taxes, regardless of whether other entities had their figures included.