2010-11-03 Cost of Government Commission Minutes

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programs. We have a preferential assessment that we give to agricultural properties on the island, which is very considerable. Sometimes it’s 1% of the market value. They’re getting taxed at just what they would be expected to get as farmers for that property. Well, the ag specialist monitors this program. Makes sure that nobody is cheating. Make sure that they are in fact really doing some agricultural production. Unfortunately right now those duties have divulged back onto the field appraisers so that when they go out to check, if they go out for permits they go to check and see if the ag is in place. So, how do they augment? In the case of the one evaluation analysis position, he prevents fraud or lost of revenue due to improper application of the agricultural preferential assessment. In the case of the other evaluation analysis, he would assist in more accurate assessments and therefore save money as far as appeals. Obviously everybody has the right to appeal their assessment. If we’re accurate, we do not lose those cases. In effect, they’re multipliers. They make all the other fourteen people more effective. MS. NICHOLSON: Any questions? MR. TAKABA: You assess the penalty if they have a late payment? Can you explain the penalty? MR. SITKO: By ordinance, there is a 10% penalty for the amount due on the two payment due dates. Normally they are February 20 and August 20. But if you’re a day late, you’re going to pay a 10% penalty. Thereafter, at the first of each month we have a 1% interest that is applied. MS. WONG: Does your department go after that delinquency or is it another department that goes after it? MR. SITKO : No, we go after, after three years if they are in arrears and in three years we put the property for tax foreclosure sale. We do send out interim bills. We do also try to work with people. Obviously the tax foreclosure sale is a last resort. We don’t like to do that but classically, we do two sales a year. We start with about 200 properties and we generally boil it down to about 50 to 80 that we actually have to sell. Because in most cases people will rearrange their affairs to pay off their taxes. MR. ARMOUR: When you have a tax sale and lets say there’s $20,000 going against the property and it sells for 90,000, where is the extra money going. MR. SITKO: It is returned to the owner. The surplus, our cost, our penalty, our interest and the base tax come back to the county. However, any surplus over those amounts goes back to the owners if we can locate them. MR. ARMOUR: And they have one year to reclaim the property? MR. SITKO: Yes. MR. ARMOUR: Another question if I may, how do you get the ag designation on your property? 8