$307 MILLION ERROR
Overvaluation of lot on tax roll leaves Wakulla County with a $2.4M hole in the budget, and schools with $1.6M hole
Ed Brimner, Left, Lisa Craze, Right.
Property Appraiser Ed Brimner’s office mistakenly valued a vacant lot at $300 million. It’s actual taxable value was $7,500. The mistake was discovered by Tax Collector Lisa Craze when preparing to send out tax bills.
By WILLIAM SNOWDEN Editor
Wakulla County Property Appraiser Ed Brimner met with county and school officials on Monday, Oct. 23, to notify them of a huge error in the tax roll: a 50x100 foot vacant lot in Crawfordville had been mistakenly assessed at more than $307 million.
The lot’s actual taxable value is $7,500.
Brimner said he was devastated by the magnitude of the mistake. “Other than a death in the family, I couldn’t feel worse – I just feel terrible.”
Both the Wakulla County government and Wakulla County School Board built budgets with $4.1 million in taxes that the $307 million value draws – and now Wakulla County has a $2.4 million hole in its budget, and the school board has a $1.6 million hole.
“Thank God we have reserves,” said County Administrator David Edwards on Tuesday. His plan to deal with the error is to dip into the county’s reserves for about $1.2 million, to delay hiring any new positions for at least six months, and potentially using money in the Revenue Stabilization Fund – the fund created years ago to cover shortfalls in the old jail-bed program.
An emergency meeting on the county’s audit committee was called for Friday, Oct. 27.
Superintendent of Schools Bobby Pearce said the district is entitled to state monies to cover most of the error. The district does have reserves as well.
But Pearce said the $1.6 million shortfall would affect ongoing contract negotiations with the teacher’s union as the district’s fund balance will not be what it budgeted.
The school board has an executive session scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 26 to discuss teacher negotiations and the error will be discussed at that meeting, Pearce said.
In letters to the county and school district, Brimner attributes the mistake to human error by an employee in his office.
Apparently, the employee took the assessed value of the land of $7,500 and multiplied it by its $41,000 value and came up an assessed value of $307,500,000 for the small lot.
The error was not caught by Brimner’s office or by the state Department of Revenue when it approved the tax roll.
Wakulla County Tax Collector Lisa Craze caught the error on Monday while pulling samples of the tax roll before sending out tax bills.
Craze was immediately concerned about the $4.1 million tax bill on a vacant lot. She noted that no entity in Wakulla County has a tax bill of more than $1 million.
The most valuable property in Wakulla County is the Publix Shopping Center at $14 million; Walmart center is valued at $7 million; and St. Marks Powder is valued at $4 million.
Brimner acknowledged “serious ripple effects of this error.” He vowed to make to make budget cuts within his office, including not filling a vacant position and not accepting a pay raise for himself, and no office travel for conferences.
“It’s gonna be painful for the county,” he said, “and we’re gonna share the pain.”
A retired U.S. Air Force officer, Brimner recounted that when there was an airplane crash, no one was crucified for the error so that everyone felt free to come forward with the truth. “If there’s a lesson to be learned, we want to learn it,” he said.
After an initial interview at the Sun office, Brimner called back later and added that the person responsible for the error is being suspended without pay for a period of time and is being removed from supervisory responsibilities.
Brimner also announced that he would cut his office’s budget by 10% reiterating that an open position in the office would not be filled.
A new software system is being installed in the property appraiser’s office and Brimner said his first question when the office begins training on Monday will be how to set up a tripwire to prevent something like this from ever happening again.
