Finance director details errors in real‑estate billing run and steps to remediate; personal‑property process improvements noted

Sheila White, senior director of finance for the City of Richmond, briefed council on multiple billing issues affecting residents and on steps taken to modernize revenue administration.

White said the 2025 second‑half real‑estate billing used a runbook template derived from the 2024 second‑half run but that the runbook did not reflect exactly the former manager’s full set of steps and validation counts. The discrepancy led to some lender‑suppressed bills being printed and mailed to property owners rather than to mortgage servicers. "Simply put, the failure to update the runbook to accurately reflect the steps to process the file and the validation results led us to where we are today," White said.

White provided production figures: the roll produced 75,905 bills (not inclusive of certain public‑service and pallet billings); the department mailed 53,409 paper bills; and she said "$33,209.70 real estate bills were mailed to property owners instead of their mortgage servicers," language used in the briefing to describe the outcome. She said the bills themselves were accurate, and that remediation steps include rerunning the process, updating the runbook, retraining staff, providing files to mortgage servicers and an outreach campaign coordinated with the Office of Strategic Communications.

For remediation, White said the finance department will perform an account analysis to identify potential overpayments and decide whether to refund, leave a credit on the account or transfer funds to other tax liabilities. She said that sweep would occur in June and be completed before the close of the accrual period in August.

On personal property (vehicle) assessments, White explained that Virginia law (Code of Virginia §58.1‑3503(a)(3) referenced in the briefing) requires use of a recognized pricing guide such as J.D. Power or NADA. She described improvements in the city’s RVA Pay implementation that move assessment workflows from manual, high‑touch processes to more automated, API‑driven steps and exception reporting. White said that, as a result of iterative changes, the 2025 personal‑property billing did not impose credit‑card convenience fees on taxpayers.

White acknowledged other service problems this year, including rebated checks and errant mailings, and said the department is working with DMV data cleansing and other data‑quality measures to reduce manual adjustments that carry forward as exceptions into the billing system. She invited council members to submit questions and said she would return to committees and meetings for further detail on remediation and modernization plans.