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Manassas Park treasurer reports recovered funds, outlines plan to expand tax collection tools
Summary
Treasurer Donald told the governing body March 3 that he has recovered $16,401 in missed reimbursements, renegotiated bank terms to earn interest on city accounts, and will enroll in the states debt-offset program to intercept refunds for delinquent taxpayers while pursuing automation and staff changes to improve collections.
Treasurer Donald provided a detailed fiscal update to the Manassas Park governing body on March 3, reporting operational changes and specific collection figures and outlining several near-term enforcement and automation measures.
Donald said he recovered $16,401 in reimbursements the city had not previously claimed and has negotiated bank terms so more city accounts will begin to earn interest under a treasury-yield formula (he cited a target of about 3.15%). He walked the governing body through collection rates by tax type, saying business-license collections were about 92.5%, business personal-property collections roughly 77.5%, meals-tax collections about 90.6%, personal-property collections near 77.6%, and prior-year real-estate collections roughly 99%.
The treasurer described operational fixes: automating check processing and deposits to reduce manual "hand-keying" for water and sewer payments, cross-training staff to provide surge capacity during personal-property seasons, and hiring a dedicated water-and-sewer billing clerk. He noted 36 returned-mail tax bills that day (1 water and sewer, 1 real estate, 3 business personal-property and 31 personal-property) and said more than 4,000 accounts in the city were delinquent across recent years.
On enforcement, Donald said the city will enroll in the states debt-offset (tax-intercept) program so the locality can recoup unpaid local taxes from state income-tax refunds or lottery winnings. "When we had the state income tax refunds last year, we got none of that because we werent in the program," he said, adding that the debt-offset process is straightforward and will provide recurring monthly intercept payments once files are uploaded and validated.
He also described recent utility enforcement: the city conducted water and sewer shutoffs after collection notices; 116 households and businesses were shut off initially and the number fell to 13 by the end of that week, with eight households still without water at the time of his report. Donald urged residents to use the citys automatic-debit option to avoid service interruptions and highlighted limitations where water service cannot be turned off (for users served by the Prince William Service Authority).
On payments and fees, Donald said most e-check payments across tax types are free but the current vendor charges $1.95 for water-and-sewer e-checks; he and staff will review vendor options and whether a consolidated software solution could eliminate that charge. He said the city is already evaluating bank services to accelerate deposits and reduce processing lag.
Council members asked about additional tools (TACS collection service, DMV stops, administrative hearings, and earlier uses of booting). Donald said he would pursue the easiest, low-cost measures first (debt offset, improved bank handling and targeted collection correspondence) and continue to review other enforcement options with legal and operational constraints in mind.
The treasurer closed by noting plans for follow-up reporting and additional departmental coordination, including work to collect more than $1.2 million in outstanding police-department tickets that Donald said the city must address through combined approaches.
