COUPEVILLE – Island County takes too long to balance its books and record its property taxes, according to a report just released by the State Auditor’s Office.
County officials acknowledge the backlogs and said they are working on it.
Even so, County Assessor Tom Baenen said the state audit did not recognize that some of the tax-related delays are beyond the county’s control.
The state audit found that some property taxes were not being levied soon enough and some were at incorrect amounts.
In addition, the audit criticized a backlog of more than 1,200 property tax adjustments that have yet to be entered into the county’s database.
The adjustments become necessary after annual rates have been set if a state board agrees with a landowner’s appeal, for senior citizen exemptions or for splitting or combining a land parcel. Simple clerical errors must be fixed, too.
The county can’t control how quickly all those things move, Baenen said.
“The state board of tax appeals is presently scheduling hearings that are nine months down the line,” Baenen said, for example.
Subdividing or combining lots is the county’s duty, though. Baenen acknowledged the county had fallen behind by six months for recording such adjustments.
The audit left out some context for those numbers, Baenen said. Every county is going to have some natural lag time, he added.
Snohomish County was six months behind in 2003 and other area counties reported lag times of two to six months, according to a report from the state Department of Revenue.
“I consider it to be current for Island County between 60 and 90 days,” Baenen said.
His office fell behind that standard because he diverted a staff member to a county mapping project, Baenen said.
“Our hope is in the next week to 10 days to put him back on helping the clerk,” Baenen said.
The audit also criticized County Treasurer Linda Riffe’s office for not balancing the county checkbook on time.
“The 2005 bank statements had not been reconciled when the audit began in June 2005,” according to the audit. “Reconciliation of bank accounts should happen within 30 days after the statement date.”
Riffe acknowledged falling behind but said the lag was not quite that big.
The accounts had been reconciled for all of 2004 through March 2005, Riffe said.
She characterized the lag as a “hiccup” after having received mostly clean audits during her three years in office.
Riffe and Baenen agreed with the audit that one central problem for the county is that different departments use different accounting software.
“In many cases the flow of information is stymied” between departments, Riffe said.
County employees have been meeting for three years trying to improve the software compatibility problem, she said.
“I think this (audit) got their attention,” Riffe said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@ heraldnet.com.
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