Wood River mayor says annexations were left off tax rolls; county says corrections made within statute

Greg Kramer, mayor of Wood River, told the Hall County Board of Commissioners that multiple city annexations since 2016 were not assigned to Wood River’s tax district and therefore were undercollected.

"When we put these subdivisions in, we filed our ordinance, except for maybe one, and it was never put on our tax rolls," Kramer said, listing several subdivisions and saying the discrepancy could total roughly $136,636 based on his back-of-the-envelope calculations.

County staff and an assessor’s representative told the board they have identified the problem and gone back to correct records where state law permits. "The register of deeds office was never giving annexations to the assessor's office ever. That has been corrected," the assessor's office representative said, adding that tax corrections had been made for prior years and checks and balances are now in place to prevent recurrences.

Board members pressed for detail on how far back corrections could go. The assessor’s office said state statute limits how far the county can retroactively collect and that corrections were made for as many years as allowed. "We did do what we could do by law," the assessor's office representative said.

The board authorized the county chair to sign tax correction notices at the meeting, and commissioners indicated they would follow up with staff to determine exact dollar figures and the statutory period covered. Kramer said he had provided ordinances and parcel data to the county and that he expected further coordination to resolve remaining discrepancies.

Next steps: county staff agreed to meet with City of Wood River officials to review affected parcels and report back to the board with an itemized estimate of lost revenue and the years included under state statute.