Date Published: July 14, 2006   

Jasper County Council raises property taxes after errors

The Associated Press

Assessment errors - including a mobile home mistakenly valued at $262 million - led the Jasper County council to give initial approval to raising property taxes Thursday.

During an emergency budget meeting, council members said they had little choice but to raise tax bills by about 13 percent to cover a $2.5 million shortfall.

"We really cut the budget back to the bare necessities already," County Council Chairman George Hood said. "There's no fat in our budget."

The County Council used the multimillion-dollar mobile home and four other properties inflated in value to figure out how much property tax revenue the county would receive.

The mistakes happened when employees entering the new property values into a computer program failed to delete the old values. In the case of the mobile home, several digits from the old value were left attached to the end of the new value, meaning the $26,200 home was listed instead as worth $262 million, County Assessor Rosemary O'Quinn said.

The errors involved five properties, all outside of Hardeeville and Ridgeland, whose budgets will not be affected, O'Quinn said.

The $33 million budget is a $5 million increase over last year.

The tax rate proposed Thursday is still lower than last year's rate, but because average property values increased substantially under the new assessment, most residents will see a slightly higher tax bill this year.

And passage of the amended budget that includes the new tax rate will require three public readings and likely won't be completed until September, said Ronnie Malphrus, the county's deputy administrator for finance.

O'Quinn told the council she regretted the errors but said the mistakes were caught before reassessment notices or tax bills were mailed out. Malphrus said that will likely happen next month.

---

Information from: The Beaufort Gazette,