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BUTLER COUNTY
No refund for illegal tax
It’s too late for taxpayers to get back money from aquifer assessment. It was OK for county to collect for the fund, but not the way it was done.
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By Josh Sweigart,
Staff Writer
Updated 1:28 AM Tuesday, February 9, 2010
HAMILTON — It may have been collected illegally, and the individual amounts may be “piddling,” but Butler County property owners still aren’t getting their money back.
Recent revelations that a special assessment to protect the aquifer was improperly carried out — collecting $2.3 million on tax bills over 13 years — came too late for residents to get a refund, according to the county prosecutor’s office.
In a written opinion, county Assistant Prosecutor Roger Gates states that property owners had to pay their taxes under protest and file suit within one year to get a refund — even though they didn’t know the assessment was technically wrong.
And the $21,367 in outstanding delinquent assessments still must be paid — even though the assessment is a mistake — because property owners didn’t contest it within the allotted time frame for appeals.
The most recent $1.46 annual assessment won’t be on this year’s tax bills, and county commissioners unanimously agreed Monday, Feb. 8, to rescind it for the year.
Instead, they agreed to dip into the recession-battered general fund for the $115,488 that the assessment was to bring in for the Miami Conservancy District.
At issue is a special assessment created in 1996 for the conservancy district’s Aquifer Preservation Subdistrict, which protects the region’s drinking water. First set at $1.26 a year, the annual assessment rose to $1.46 in 2004.
Commissioners had the authority to create a tax for this purpose, but not an assessment, county Auditor Roger Reynolds recently said. And the prosecutor’s office agreed.
Even though the money was supposed to be collected as a tax, and the amount is “piddling,” Hamilton homeowner Roger Franz said the county should give it back.
“I sure would like to have it back. But heck, what do you do with it?” the AK Steel retiree said of the less than $20 he has paid over 13 years.
He said he’s not surprised to learn of the mistake, and it doesn’t do much for his opinion of local government.
“They can put anything on those tax bills, and we don’t know it,” he said. “You can’t convince me they do anything right.”
Commission must decide the way it will fund aquifer preservation
Butler County commissioners will decide later this year how to pay its annual bill for groundwater protection to the Miami Conservancy District, now that they know the way they were doing it was wrong.
The payment comes out to $202,765. Commissioners can pay it from the county’s general fund or create a tax to collect it without a ballot measure.
It would be a minimal millage, amounting to a few dollars per year, but would vary from one household to another based on property values.
What they can’t do is pass it along as a special assessment, which is what they have been doing since payments to the Aquifer Preservation Subdistrict started in 1996. The special assessments were $1.26 from every household until 2004, when that was raised to $1.46.
In total, it has collected $2.3 million.
Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds recently pointed out — and the county prosecutor’s office agreed — that the commissioners were allowed to create a tax to raise this money, but not an assessment. The difference between the two is whether it’s calculated based on property values or spread evenly over all homes that benefit from it.
Commissioners voted Monday, Feb. 8, to take it off the 2009 tax bills due this year, and make this year’s payment out of the general fund.
Reynolds already removed it from the tax bills — which are in the mail — when he found the 13-year-old mistake. Commissioners said Monday that it’s unclear whether he had the legal authority to do so, but they passed a resolution supporting his action.
“The end result is it came off, and it should have come off. It just didn’t come off the right way,” said Commissioner Donald Dixon.
County leaders said they can’t even look to other counties to determine how best to raise the money.
Under state statute, the aquifer subdistrict collects money from all or part of nine counties. It uses the money to monitor and protect the aquifer those areas use for drinking water.
Hamilton County, which comprises a small piece of the district, pays for this from its general fund. But Butler County officials say the others all use the same assessment that the local prosecutor’s office has deemed illegal.
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8:28 AM, 3/7/2010
How can you protest what you are not aware of? We all expected to be charged correctly. What did we have to measure the mistake?
If we had underpaid, I am sure this rule of the 1 year to find and protest would not apply. Simply put, I would have to pay.
How dishonest!
2:55 PM, 2/10/2010
10:19 PM, 2/9/2010
5:26 PM, 2/9/2010
1:27 PM, 2/8/2010
Reynolds was not going to tell the public, he told his employees to keep this quiet. It was not until Josh found out and questioned him that he decided to do a press release. For the record he was not going to make it public, remember it is an election year for him. He actually told his employees to direct all calls about the tax to the commissioners. He only came out to the public because he had to. So he could avoid harm.
4:56 PM, 2/9/2010