Greenport Village Notes: Tax Bills Hit Snafu, Treasurer to Send Inactive Utility Accounts to Collections

Treasurer Charlene Kagel told the village board her office will attempt to collect $177,000 in outstanding utility bills, some dating back to the 1980s.

At the work session Monday evening, Kagel told the board the village auditors want some of the outstanding delinquencies written off so she said her office is going to make an effort to collect monies from inactive accounts. Kagel said her office will do a mailing to generate a bill to see if the addresses are correct. She said she assumes many will come back as undeliverable because properties and businesses may have been sold, tenants may have moved out, and some of the addressees may be deceased.

Kagel said her goal is to send many of the accounts to a collections agency and let them take over. Collection agencies charge municipalities less for collections than commercial businesses, she said. The only information the agency needs, said Kagel, is last known name and address, and a copy of the balance.

Trustee Christina Kempner asked why Kagel’s office would even send out a mailing at this point and suggested going directly to the collections agency.

Kagel told the board the letter is already written and her office was ready to send out the mailings. She said her office is prepared to work directly with people to help process payments. Kagel explained overdue water and sewer bills can be added onto the property taxes, unlike the utility bills.

Greenport Mayor David Nyce cautioned the board against expecting big returns.

“The stuff Charlene is taking about is basically considered uncollectable,” Nyce said.

Village Hits ‘Snafu’ with Taxes

Kagel said a good portion of the property taxes are in but the village hit a “snafu” because a computer system the village uses.

Kagel said 22 people received delinquent notices in error after their payments were not entered into system. The villages uses a stand- alone system that is not networked with other village computers to input the tax information. While the tax monies were received, and deposited, those 22 bills were not entered into the system.

To avoid this problem in the future, Kagel will demo new software to fully integrate all village functions. She said stand-alone property tax systems are not made anymore.

“Hopefully, by next tax collection season, we will have an integrated, updated software system in place,” Kagel said.