Muscogee property owners may get more time to pay tax bills this year

Muscogee County property taxpayers will have a little more time to pay their taxes this year because of the city’s conversion to new software.

Normally, property owners would receive tax notices June 1 and tax bills Aug. 1, with first and final installments due Oct. 1 and Dec 1.

This year, tax notices will be issued June 30. Tax bills won’t be mailed until Oct. 1. There will only be one required installment this year, which will be due on Dec. 1. Taxpayers may still make an earlier installment, which is encouraged but not mandatory, said tax assessment officials.

John Williams, deputy chief appraiser with the Muscogee County Board of Assessors, presented the schedule change to Columbus Council Tuesday at a regular council meeting. The second reading of the ordinance will be June 20 at a 5:30 p.m. council meeting.

City Manager Isaiah Hugley said officials met with Huff and Tax Assessor Betty Middleton on Monday to work out the details. He said he would convene another meeting to develop a communications strategy.

When Councilor Gary Allen asked how the three-week delay would affect city revenue, City Financial Director Angelica Alexander said 31 percent of the city’s operating budget comes from property taxes. Forgoing the Oct. 1 payment would put the city in a tough position, she said. So departments will have to delay purchases unless absolutely necessary.

“This doesn’t mean that we’re not going to pay bills as they come due for those bills that are due,” Alexander said. “But particularly for those large ticket items, those capital purchases in the fiscal year ’18 operating budget, we’ve allocated about $5 million for capital outlay, and we’re going to delay those purchases until January of 2018 to assist us with some of the cash flow issues that may come about.”

Hugley said the city would monitor the situation. If taxpayers pay October installments as they usually do, some projects would move forward. He said the Muscogee County School District, which receives about 60 percent of the property taxes, will be in a similar situation.

Williams said the department is converting the software through a company called Tyler Technologies. He said the conversion occurred at the same time the department was conducting a property reassessment project.

He said the web-based software will enhance property assessments and the tax commissioner’s collection functions. New features include public website access, reassessment services for taxable real estate, street level images, data verification and valuation services.

Allen asked why the delay occurred in the first place and what was being done to notify taxpayers.

Williams said May 1 was the deadline to get values approved by the Board of Assessors, but the department ran into difficulty developing the residential models necessary to calculate the values. He said valuations in Green Island and Old Town were particularly challenging.

“Let’s take Green Island, for example, and the various impacts on value to the property,” he said. “Water view, what type of water view? How much water frontage? Typography. Golf course view, what golf course view? All these different pieces and parts had to be taken into account and applied to every parcel.”

Williams said tax assessors also had three databases running at the same time, which pushed the completion date back even further.

“That’s the reason why after May 22 we didn’t just drop production, print notices and send them, because there’s a lot that could wrong,” he said. “... We don’t want to send inaccurate notices out, you’re talking about hundreds of thousands of appeals. That would be very detrimental to our system and what we do.”

Tax Commissioner Lula Huff said her department would insert bright colored notices in the tax bill to alert taxpayers of the changes. The public also will be notified on the city’s CCG and tax assessor’s websites. Mortgage companies also would be contacted.

“... They can make a payment in October if they choose to,” Williams said of taxpayers. “If they just didn’t read (the inserts) and went ahead with their normal payment methodology that would be fine. We’re going to accept those early payments. They’re just not due until Dec. 1.”

This story was originally published June 14, 2017 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Muscogee property owners may get more time to pay tax bills this year."