COM 0641.001 2010-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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IAA() Review April 3, 2012 Page 5 We appreciate the efforts of the authors of the report in reviewing our County's tax policies and hope to have the opportunity to discuss the policies with them. Their review of operations has identified several areas that we would like to work on, or where we are already involved in implementing improvements. The authors maintain that all of their recommended changes, other than new software, can be implemented with current staffing and budget. It is our position that their analysis was made without all necessary information, or a complete understanding of operational challenges. The authors' comparison to `benchmark' jurisdictions notes that most, if not all, of those jurisdictions listed do not include tax collections. They did remove the employees from the collections section from the calculation but did not remove the costs from the budget number used. The RPT budget includes $945,505 that is directly related to the collections section. Once this is removed Hawai'i County falls to the bottom of the acceptable range. An attached chart provides additional information regarding budget and staffing, and compares the County to the other counties in Hawai`i. The most comparable is Maui County. The amounts used are from the statewide report which is compiled annually by each of the counties and available on the Honolulu website. The number used is for levied real property tax amounts for FY 2009 -10 and does not include penalty, interest or amounts collected by tax sale. The staffing counts exclude any collections staff, where applicable, and were provided by the administrators of the other three counties. While division budget amounts for the other outer islands were not immediately available the same civil service costs apply across the state. In 2004 and 2005 the County Council passed several ordinances amending the county code related to certain exemptions and agricultural programs. This was the culmination of over two years and hundreds of hours of work, involving a wide range of stakeholders, including legislative branch representatives, real property tax appraisers, various finance experts, corporation counsel, input from members of the Real Property Tax Board of Review and a variety of members from the agricultural community. Review of tax provisions and policies is important and warrants a thorough and thoughtful process to achieve the desired results. Thank you for this opportunity to provide input. Sincerely, Nancy Crawford Finance Director Attachments cc: William P. Kenoi, Mayor Hawai`i County Council