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Montgomery County to reprint and mail corrected property tax statements after data error
Summary
County commissioners directed the clerk to reprint corrected real-estate tax statements after staff and a resident identified duplicated data in mill levies and valuation years; the county will mark corrected statements and republish mill levies to avoid locking in incorrect figures for next year.
Montgomery County commissioners agreed Dec. 2, 2024 to have the county clerk reprint and mail corrected property tax statements after county staff and a resident identified duplicated data in the mailed statements that could carry incorrect valuation information into next year.
Andy Taylor, listed on the agenda to speak about property tax statements, told the board that the mailed statements contained duplicated mill levies and incorrect year labels and said the county should "own up to it and educate the taxpayers" by sending corrected statements. "This is Montgomery County's fault. This is their mistake," Taylor said during his remarks.
County clerk/treasurer Nancy (identified in the meeting transcript) described the production problems that led to the error: late receipt of the tax roll from other counties, multiple failures of the mail inserter and a postage machine, and vendor intervention to correct formatting. Nancy said the vendor took remote control of the system to diagnose the issue and that personal property statements had already been reprinted and mailed; she offered to reprint real-estate statements if the board authorized it. "By statute, I am to have the tax roll from the county clerk's office by November 1st," Nancy said in explaining parts of the timeline.
A representative of the Property Valuation Division in Topeka advised the county that, even if the dollar amounts were correct, leaving the wrong year or valuation information on mailed statements could lock those figures into next year's records and create downstream problems for taxpayers and towns that had reduced mill levies. That guidance pushed commissioners toward reprinting to avoid potential legal or administrative complications.
Commissioners directed staff to reprint corrected real-estate statements (the clerk cited about 22,000 statements as the print run) and to mark the reprints "corrected statement" on the coupon and send them via mail. Commissioners also asked that they be allowed to proof the materials before final mailing and that the official publication of mill levies be republished in the county's designated paper.
Nancy gave an estimated cost number in the meeting transcript for reprinting and mailing; the transcript lists the figure as "2,100,197,52" and the clerk said the reprint could be mailed "tomorrow" if she gave the go-ahead. The meeting did not provide an audited or corrected dollar figure in the transcript; commissioners framed the reprint as a necessary step despite the expense to avoid administrative harm.
Next steps: the clerk will arrange reprints with the vendor, prepare corrected mailings marked "corrected statement," republish mill levies as required by statute, and present proofs to the commission before final distribution.
