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Chickasaw County staff say property-tax bills to owners were correct after TIF distribution error
Summary
County staff told supervisors that property-tax statements mailed to owners were accurate but a tax-authority distribution for a New Hampton TIF district was incorrectly allocated to the city; county staff said they are recalculating apportionments and expect final numbers soon.
Chickasaw County officials told the Board of Supervisors on Sept. 3 that property-tax statements mailed to owners were correct but that tax-distribution records incorrectly showed the New Hampton tax-increment financing (TIF) district absorbing amounts meant for other taxing authorities. Sheila Shulkin, the board secretary, and county staff said the mistake affects how tax receipts are apportioned among local taxing bodies and that they have begun re-running the numbers.
County staff reported a sizable valuation base tied to the parcels in question and discussed estimates during the meeting: one speaker cited roughly $20,000,000 in assessed valuation affected by the TIF adjustment, and the district’s request was discussed in the range of about $290,000. Staff also said roughly 6,700 parcel records were showing zeroes for multiple taxing bodies, which complicates automated breakdowns and will require manual or batch correction.
Officials described the immediate consequence as an internal distribution issue, not an error on the billed amount to individual property owners. “The property tax statements that went out are correct for the taxes for the property owners,” a county staff member said, adding that the distribution to taxing authorities had been absorbed by the city of New Hampton in the county’s system and would be corrected and redistributed once the county and city reconcile the TIF calculation. Board members pressed staff on whether the error could trigger statutory growth-roll implications for future budgets and whether the mistaken allocations could affect next year’s rollback calculations.
Staff said they expect to have running tallies available for the board’s review soon; some speakers gave preliminary figures for how much would flow back to county and other levies, including rough drafts that ranged from the tens of thousands into low hundreds of thousands of dollars for particular levy lines. Several supervisors suggested the county prepare a clear explanatory letter to affected taxpayers and to the other taxing entities to reduce confusion while the county completes the accounting corrections.
The board did not take formal action on the TIF distribution during the meeting but directed staff to continue reconciling the numbers and to report back when recalculations are complete.
