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Treasurer says tax‑title work and outside collection vendor are largely pass‑through costs; property management is cost center until sales return tax revenue
Summary
Acting Treasurer‑Collector Sandra Powell told councilors that tax‑title property maintenance is funded from professional services and is typically not fully recovered until properties are sold, and that outside collection vendor fees are collected from delinquent taxpayers.
Acting Treasurer‑Collector Sandra Powell presented the treasurer and collector budgets and outlined how tax‑title and collection processes affect departmental costs.
Powell said the treasurer’s budget includes 10 FTEs and the collector’s office includes seven FTEs and noted the treasurer’s budget shown in the packet reflects the absorption of a tax‑title program position from the Office of Housing (a senior program manager). "The treasurer's total budget is $1,000,687,558,000 dollars, and the collector's office is at $594,436," Powell said; the large treasurer figure appears to include custodial or pooled-dollar accounting for trust or investment accounts and the collector figure represents operating dollars for tax collection functions.
On tax title, Powell said the city spends professional‑services money on property maintenance for tax‑title properties and recovers only some of those costs when properties are sold or returned to the tax roll. "We don't recover much of the property management cost for tax title foreclosure properties," she said.
Councilors asked about the outside vendor Kelly & Ryan, which performs deputy and service work on delinquent accounts. Powell explained that the vendor collects statutory deputy fees and other service charges from delinquent taxpayers and that the municipality reimburses the vendor for those deputy fees when funds are processed; the arrangement is structured so the fees are assessed to the delinquent taxpayer rather than being billed directly to the city. "They mail all of our real estate and personal property and excise bills for no charge to the city," Powell added, noting the lockbox process (Woburn address) accelerates receipt and deposit of payments.
No formal vote occurred; councilors requested further breakout detail on tax‑title expenses and collection fees.
