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Cortland County legislators unanimously approved the move for a municipality to fix a clerical error that resulted in inaccurate property tax bills.
Legislators held a special legislative session on Tuesday to green light the town of Cincinnatus’ efforts to submit revised property tax bills.
On Jan. 4, town officials reported that a clerical error reflected a 77.7% increase in the fire district bill instead of 2%. There was also a 14.4% increase in the town tax bill, instead of 1.8%.
“It was an error within the Cincinnatus budget,” Laura Fox, the county director of real property tax services, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “It was not using fund balances for the town. It was picking up the entire Cincinnatus fire district, not the allocation for the town of Cincinnatus.”
The following day (Jan. 5), county officials issued a statement in regard to the town’s tax error:
“Cortland County assures that the County portion of the tax bill is correct, and that residents of other municipalities in Cortland County do not need to be concerned about the accuracy of their tax bills.”
“This wasn’t an issue at the county level,” said Beau Harbin, county legislator and minority leader (D-LD-2). “It was an unfortunate oversight with the Cincinnatus budget that was received. We processed it and did our due diligence.”
Fox said the town will reissue the tax bill with watermarks notifying a revision. Tax payment in the town is still due Jan. 31, but Fox added that town residents have eight penalty-free days beyond the deadline to submit payments.
“This will get them right to the Jan. 31 deadline without having to extend deadlines,” Fox said.
Fox mentioned there will be 666 second prints, which cost under $500 to reprint the bills.
“We charged second printing to the town because it was a town error,” Fox said.
When Fox had discussions with the town’s tax collector, she believed that the collector originally processed about six payments.
“She had a stack of checks in a safe that she did not process,” Fox said. “After this was resolved, she was going to go through those corrections with property owners to reissue checks.”
Harbin noted after officials “fielded frantic phone calls,” he is relieved that the situation is being resolved.
“We can move this forward quickly to put the issue to bed and get it resolved for the taxpayers,” Harbin said.
Cincinnatus residents looking for more information or ask questions can call the town at 607-863-4018 or go to townofcincinnatus.org/contact-us/.
A recorded video of Tuesday’s special legislature session can be found here. Documents in regard to Cincinnatus’ property tax bill situation are here.
