Here's an "Oops My Bad" for Ya by 5string on Blogster

Error leads to $262M mobile home in Jasper County
Associated Press
BEAUFORT, S.C. - An error has led to a Jasper County mobile home being listed as worth $262 million and put the county's budget out of balance.

The County Council used the multimillion-dollar mobile home and four other properties inflated in value to figure out how much property tax revenue the county would receive.

Now it looks like the county will have to raise property taxes to make up for a $2.5 million shortfall in the budget year that began this month.

"I can understand errors, but I don't understand errors of that magnitude," County Council Chairman George Hood said. "I don't understand why there wasn't a check-and-balance system in place to catch these errors before we passed the budget."

The mistakes happened when employees entering the new property values into a computer program failed to delete the old values. In the case of the mobile home, several digits from the old value were left attached to the end of the new value, meaning the $26,200 home was listed instead as worth $262 million, County Assessor Rosemary O'Quinn said.

The errors involved five properties, all outside of Hardeeville and Ridgeland, whose budgets will not be affected, O'Quinn said.

The County Council has planned an emergency meeting to talk about the budget Thursday.

County officials will recommend the council raise the millage rate by 27 mills to cover the $2.5 million shortfall, said Ronnie Malphrus, the county's deputy administrator for finance.

That would raise the taxes on a $150,000 home by about $162, to $1,344.

Hood said council members need to look at all of their options, including spending cuts.

"The problem is, I'm sure we're already spending this money," Hood said. "I don't know how much flexibility were going to have."

The county already had to delay its budget because reassessment numbers didn't come in until June, making them several months late.

O'Quinn said her office didn't have enough assessors to finish the job on time.

Assessors caught the errors before reassessment notices were sent to the property owners, O'Quinn said.

2 comments on Here's an "Oops My Bad" for Ya

Blogdreamz said 2 years ago
I could only imagine the person receiving their tax bill on this one. And, their excuse was not enough Assessor. I use to work for the Assessor in my town and there is only 1 Assessor and a Assistant and perhaps a clerk or two and there is no dam reason why they couldn't finish in time. Just a stupid excuse that doesn't even over an inch of their ass!
5string said 2 years ago
Thanks for the comment. Yeah someone's tail should have it, I just can not see how a mistake like that was not caught sooner. Looks like when the final numbers came out they would have noticed such a huge difference between last year and this one and investigated that a little more. It will be intresting to see what happens now....well besides that town citzen's being mad as he$$ at having their taxes go up!!