ERIE COUNTY: Tax talk turns tough

By Daniel Pye<br><a href="mailto:pyed@gnnewspaper.com">E-mail Dan</a>

Erie County Legislators had Joseph Maciejewski, director of real property tax services, on the hot seat Monday to answer questions about incorrect tax bills.

More than a week ago, residents in several municipalities began discovering their tax bills weren’t what they were expecting. Maciejewski claimed responsibility for the mix up, citing a clerical error in the column for community college chargebacks.

For residents in areas that don’t send many students to Niagara County Community College, that mistake had a minimal impact. But for residents of the City of Tonawanda, close to the county line, the error resulted in an under-charging of $56.45 for each $100,000 of home value.

Maciejewski’s office decided to reprint tax bills only for Lackawanna, one of the towns that was overcharged. Those who were undercharged will have the remainder of their debt from 2009 tacked onto their 2010 tax bills.

Legislator Michele Iannello, D-Kenmore, whose district had the most under-chargings, said she was concerned that if the money wasn’t collected in 2009, the county could face complications in collecting it in 2010. The legislator said if residents die, sell their homes or lose them due to foreclosure, the process could get complicated and bring the possibility for dispute.

“There is no absolute guarantee that this money will be recouped,” Iannello said.

Maciejewski said there’s no guarantee anyone will pay their taxes, but that the bill will follow the property.

Legislator Robert Reynolds Jr., D-Hamburg, took issue with Maciejewski and Budget Director Gregory Gach making a decision that would result in the collection of nearly $2.6 million in county income being delayed for a year.

“I don’t see how you have a right to make a $2.6 million decisions for the county,” Reynolds said. “It has to come from the county executive or the deputy county executive.”

Maciejewski said he didn’t have time to wait for the administration to make a decision, and that his office was working through the weekend to ensure the reprinted bills would arrive in time. That response, while not satisfying Reynolds’ objection, led other legislators to ask why Lackawanna was the only town to get its bills reprinted.

Gach said the reprinting of Lackawanna’s 5,000 bills was a small undertaking compared to the “monumental task” that would ensue from reprinting every tax bill. Even that limited reprinting of bills and the postage to send them amounted to more than $3,600 in costs. Reynolds asked how much it would cost to reissue all of the tax bills, and Maciejewski said he would have those numbers sent over after the meeting.

Minority Leader John Mills, R-East Aurora, wanted to know if there was any way people in undercharged areas could pay the remainder of their bills this year just to get it finished. That was another question Maciejewski said he’d have to find the answer to after the meeting, but he defended his office’s decision to wait until 2010 to balance the books.

“I think it would cause undue confusion to send out another set of tax bills,” Maciejewski said.

When asked how the mistake effects the 2009 county budget, Gach said collecting the money along with the 2010 tax bills technically keeps the budget balanced. But he couldn’t answer the question of how the shortfall will affect the already distressed county cash flow, resulting mainly from the county’s inability to borrow money to cover its expenses. Gach said his office will have to watch the final numbers for 2008 tax collection, ongoing sales tax figures and state reimbursements to find out, but offered no hard timeline for when that assessment could be made.

County Comptroller Mark Poloncarz said the cash flow was tight, but with tax payments only beginning to trickle in, it would take time to tell how county payments will be effected.

“We might need to borrow more money, but we won’t know until we get to the early summer,” Poloncarz said.

Contact reporter Daniel Pye at 693-1000, ext. 158.

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