Property tax statement concerns grow, deadline nears

Some in the public raised concerns regarding the inaccuracy of the initial property tax statements that were posted online before the paper statements were available. The amounts posted originally were higher than the final amount.

“We did have some inaccurate totals on a portion of the bills that showed up online,” Hays County Tax Assessor- Collector Jenifer O’Kane said. “This did not affect the actual paper statements that were emailed to property owners.” She added that the error was caught and remedied prior to creating the paper statements. “This was my vendor’s error. I caught it immediately and they moved quickly [the next day] to fix it but didn’t complete the process. Another error on their part. I caught this a few days later. We do have a large number of refunds payable because the correction to the amount reduced the total bill.”

O’Kane said the vendor used was Tyler Technologies and the problem is that someone forgot to add in one of the two changes from state law that impacted the way property taxes are calculated in Hays County.

“The second change to tax ceilings to address SB2 is what was not initially run for Hays County accounts,” O’Kane said, talking about the state laws that impacted Prop 4. “There are calculations that the appraisal district had to do on their side, and some of the appraisal districts did them at different points in the process. We had to find out how each different appraisal district handled the Senate Bill processes. Apparently, there was a misunderstanding how Hays CAD handled it. So, the vendor did not run the Senate Bill 2 calculation, which was the second lowering of the bill.”

Tyler Technologies responded to a request for comment stating, 'Once we learned there was an adjustment that needed to be made, we worked with the Tax Assessor’s office to quickly update the information.' Senate Bill 2 is related to providing property tax relief through the public school finance system, exemptions, limitations on appraisals and taxes and property tax administration.

“S.B. 2 revises the formula for calculating the ceiling on the school district taxes that may be imposed on the residence homestead of an elderly or disabled,” according to the state legislature’s bill analysis.

O’Kane stressed that, in the mixup in Hays County, the only people impacted would be the property owners that have tax ceilings, which means they are over 65 years old or disabled, and paid the statement as soon as it came out online prior to the correction being made.

“We are trying to get them (the refunds) out by the end of Feb.,” O’Kane said.

The error was caught before the county moved funds from escrow accounts, and this issue is unrelated to escrow payments, according to O’Kane.

“Property owners may choose to pre-pay a portion or all (based on an estimate) of their property taxes to our office at any point in the year,” O’Kane said. “Upon generating the bills for a given year, we then move those funds over to the bill and either send a receipt with a balance due or a letter to the property owner asking them if they want the refund returned to them or for us to keep the funds for the next tax year.”

The property tax statements will become delinquent on Feb. 1, if not paid, according to O’Kane. However, many submitted payments have not been cashed, leaving some in the public concerned with the delinquent date, which is fast approaching.

Marian Oles, a local business owner, said she sent in two personal property tax payment checks and three business property tax payment checks on Dec. 29. She said the majority of them were cashed by the county on Jan. 29, but two checks still have not been cashed. She knows she is not alone in experiencing the issue.

“The biggest thing that was concerning me … is basically that I didn’t want a late payment fee,” Oles said, adding that she isn’t certain if they have received the checks or if they were lost in the mail. “The only way you know if they have it is if they cashed it.”

Hays County Tax-Assessor Collector Jenifer O’Kane said the checks will be cashed in the order they were received by postmark date.

“This is normal practice every tax year,” O’Kane said. “Per the Texas Property Tax Code, we use the date of postmark as the date received, regardless of when we post the payment in the system and cash the check. No one will be penalized that has a postmark date of 1/31 or prior.”

Those that have called to inquire about when the checks will be cashed have had no success contacting the tax office via phone. O’Kane said the Hays County Tax Office is having “extreme issues” with the phone system.

“Our IT department has and continues to work on this. Right now, the phones in [the tax assessor office in] San Marcos are completely down, for example,” O’Kane said. “If people are calling or emailing to make sure we received their payment, there just isn’t a way we will be able to verify that. We don’t have the manpower to stop serving customers in line and go to our mailroom to check for individual payments. This slows the entire process down and causes more inquiries because of the time we took to search for someone’s individual payment.”

For more information, go to hayscountytx. com/ departments/ taxoffice. Property tax statements can be viewed online at tax.co.hays. tx.us.