City comptroller: $17.5M tied up in school tax collection; city plans tax‑lien sale

City Comptroller Darren Morton told the Mount Vernon City School District board on March 18 that the city and district are managing large, overdue school tax balances that have strained both organizations’ cash flow and that the city will move toward a tax‑lien sale to accelerate collections.

Morton said the city and district settled a long‑running dispute over unpaid 2017–19 school levies for $11.7 million in principal plus a negotiated 6% interest component of about $2.1 million; the city has paid roughly $10.8 million toward that obligation and the remaining balance is about $3 million under the payment plan, which Morton said is expected to be paid by September 2025. "At the close of that enforcement period ... the comptroller is then to turn over to the treasurer of the school district the principal and the interest that is unpaid," Morton said, describing the statutory handoffs that govern the process.

Morton also laid out the newer set of unpaid taxes that the city is collecting for tax years the district began collecting itself (tax years 2020–2024). He said those years currently total about $17.5 million in the…