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County auditor apologizes for confusing back‑tax letters; explains fix and how residents can get bills reviewed
Summary
County auditor Megan Horton apologized for poorly worded notices sent to taxpayers with unpaid bills from 2022—24 and explained a three‑year cleanup process with American Financial; she outlined how residents can check a bill number with the treasurer's office and how the county will correct erroneous listings going forward.
Megan Horton, Jasper County auditor, told council she is sorry for the confusion and distress caused by a batch of mailed notices to taxpayers with older unpaid tax bills. Horton said the county contracted American Financial to help clean the tax roll and that the vendor used a generic template whose wording caused alarm among recipients.
Horton described the problem as a mixture of system and communication issues: the county's tax software does not synchronize automatically with DMV records, so vehicle sales, transfers, totaled vehicles and repossessions can leave unpaid bills on the county roll unless taxpayers notify both DMV and the treasurer's office. To limit the scope and be fair to taxpayers, Horton said staff chose a three‑year lookback (2022—24) rather than a five‑ or ten‑year sweep.
She offered a specific remedy for recipients: the notice includes a tax-bill number; taxpayers may call, email or visit the treasurer's office, give that number and staff will check county records and DMV entries and remove any incorrect listing immediately if the bill is not owed. Horton said the letters were never intended as threats but as an effort to correct decades of uncleaned roll entries and that a new automated flagging process will prevent this level of manual cleanup from recurring.
Councilmembers asked how other counties handle DMV integration and whether changing software would help; Horton said software and interagency data exchanges vary across counties and that further coordination with DMV is needed. She said taxpayers cannot pay those older bills online; they must visit the treasurer's office or mail a check. Horton said the county will continue outreach and suggested staff could work with state partners to reduce future mismatches.
The auditor's explanation concluded with staff offering direct help to residents who believe they were incorrectly billed, and councilmembers asked the administration to consider a public‑facing explanation and state coordination to reduce recurrence.
