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Saline County tax notices go haywire: Residents receive wrong notices or multiple statements |
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Friday, 30 March 2007 |
A sorting error has resulted in around 12,000 Saline County property owners receiving other people's 2006 property tax statements.
For this reason, County Collector Chris Villines encouraged residents not to delay opening their statements.
"Many citizens wait until later in the year to open their statements," he said. "However, this year, the collector's office strongly encourages you to open yours immediately to check for accuracy.
"While the numbers on individual tax statements are correct, there has been an error by the printing company under contract by the county. Approximately 12,000 of this year's statements have been erroneously sorted and mailed, resulting in some people receiving statements for property that belongs to others."
He noted that the problem is being addressed by the contract company. "Next week a remail of the statements will be completed ... along with a brief enclosed explanation for the error."
Villines said the additional mailings will not be done at the county's expense.
"The contracted vendor that handles the mailouts will be absorbing the cost," he said.
"The good news here is that the statements this year are completely accurate. The only error has been in sorting and mailing.
"Everybody who has received someone else's statement will be getting new statements within a week ... by the end of next week is what we're expecting. These will be correct, and they will be getting just their statements."
Villines explained that 16,648 envelopes were included in 6,821 mailouts. "Some of those contain the right statements, and some the wrong statements," he said.
"All 6,821 will be remailed and that will fix the problem.
"Basically, anybody out there that got somebody else's statement should throw it away. They do not need to be returned to the collector's office.
"Everybody gets my apology for any confusion that this has caused."
He pointed out that all of the information contained on the statements is public information. "This should allay any concern someone might have about someone having access to another individual's private tax information," Villines said.
"We are remedying this, and it should never happen again.
"If you are one of those who have received additional statements in error, please disregard any statements not intended for you."
Anyone with questions is asked to call 303-5620.
Tax information may be checked online at www.salinecollector.org or by visiting the collector's office at the Saline County Courthouse Complex in Benton or the Revenue Office in Bryant. |
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