COLUMBUS CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT
COUNCIL MEMORANDUM
TO: Mayor and Councilors DATE: September 1, 2006
FROM: Isaiah Hugley, City Manager SUBJECT: Status Report
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Provided below is a status report on the commercial parcels that the Tax
Assessor?s Office is having problems determining property taxes on due to map
splits and title problems. Also, you will find below an update on progress
from the Superior Court Clerk regarding the distribution of installment fines
prior to the new law that came into effect in 2004.
Commercial Property Tax
Attached for your information is an email from Betty Middleton, Tax Assessor,
providing a status report on taxing commercial property due to tax map splits
and title problems for the years 2002-2004.
Distribution of Installment Fines
I have had numerous meetings with Superior Court Clerk Linda Pierce regarding
the distribution of funds from installment fines between 1984 through 2004.
In a recent meeting, Ms. Pierce requested two of her current exempt employees
be allowed to work after hours and on weekends to go through more than 7,000
cases and figure out the distribution. She hopes to have this issue resolved
within the next 6-months and has agreed to provide monthly progress reports. In
2004, fine distributions started to occur as payments were received in
accordance with the change in law.
/ekt
Attachment
Mr. Hugley, as to the matter of tax map splits and title problems which we have
not been resolved for past years, listed below is a summary of the parcels and
their current status:
2002 - 2 parcels each with unresolved title issues.
2003 - 9 tax map splits involving 15 parcels; 3 being released with letters to
the owners; 5 tax map splits involving 9 parcels are going to the Board of Tax
Assessors 08-23-06 and 1 tax map split with 3 parcels with tax map problems.
2004 - 9 tax map splits involving 23 parcels; 2 tax map splits with tax map
problems involving 4 parcels; 3 tax map splits involving 7 parcels going to
Board of Tax Assessors 08-30-06 and 4 tax map splits which still require some
work before being resolved (paper work and valuing).
There will always be problems with titles or plats that are unresolved at the
end of a tax year. However, we are in the process of restructuring procedures
to reduce the better expedite the problems in this area.
Betty J. Middleton
Interim Chief Appraiser
Posted on Sun, Sep. 10, 2006
Trying to figure out fines
If you believe the rumors that have been going around for months now, then you
believe Columbus' Superior Court Clerk has stashed away up to $5 million in
fines owed the city treasury.
And what you believe is wrong, apparently: It's not $5 million. It's about $1
million in partial payments for fines that once had to be paid in full before
the money could be distributed to the different funds that by law get a cut.
And the Columbus Consolidated Government is not high on the list of who gets
money first, so it may not get a hefty slice, now that state law allows the
clerk to disperse those partial fine payments.
No one knows exactly how much money the city will get, for a couple of reasons:
(1) the formula Georgia law sets for dividing up those partial fine payments
collected prior to July 2004 is complicated; and (2) it's so complicated the
city's computer system can't do it automatically.
The result is that after two years of trying to figure out how to make the
computer figure this out, city administrators finally decided last month that
the only way to do it was "manually." That means two senior clerks are
examining each of more than 6,000 court cases to make sure fines accurately are
divided up and dispersed.
City Manager Isaiah Hugley, who approved extra funds to pay for the clerks'
extra work, has asked them to finish this in six months. The clerks aren't sure
that's feasible. The work started two weeks ago.
That's the short version of a long story. If you're already confused, don't
feel bad. Most people are, when they first hear about this.
The problems
Consider the way it used to be: If you got fined $1,000 for some offense and
couldn't pay that off right away, then you paid in installments, say $100 a
month, and the court held that money until the whole grand was in hand. Then it
passed the money around to all the different agencies and funds that got a cut.
The problem was that some people never paid the full fine. Sometimes they made
a few payments and then stopped, until they got arrested again. Sometimes when
they got arrested again, they wound up in prison, and couldn't pay more anyway.
Sometimes they just disappeared.
The clerk's office would set up a file when first an offender made a payment,
and would update it as subsequent payments came in. If the payments stopped,
the file just sat there, and so did the money. It languished in legal limbo
until the law changed.
Now the clerk's office distributes each payment as it comes in, according to a
formula. Getting the city's 1980s computer system to compute the distribution
accurately took time, but now it does, and it has distributed fine payments
back to 2004.
But not the ones banked before that.
Why?
Because the computer had not tracked each fine payment as if the money would be
distributed before the full amount was collected. It had tracked only how much
was paid toward the final balance.
Now it can divide up for distribution the new money that's coming in, but it
can't go back and do that for the old cases, because every case is different
and may require a different formula for dispersal. The Superior Court Clerk
can't just pool all the money and divvy it up according to set percentages.
That the computer could do.
The complications
Here's one of the less confusing examples: Say a guy's been convicted on three
charges -- DUI, driving while his license is suspended and running a red light.
A judge gives him a separate fine for each count. He makes a few payments
toward the full amount, but that's all.
From each of the fines he has paid, the county's law library is supposed to get
$5, said Chief Deputy Clerk Willie Demps: That means it should get $15. If the
computer takes the total paid and gives the library only $5, that's wrong.
One fund gets 10 percent of a fine, up to a $50 cap. If you disregard the cap
and give the fund 10 percent in excess of $50, that's wrong.
Partial payments are distributed differently depending on how much has been
paid, and they're distributed differently for different cases: Money from a
drug case is not dispersed like money from a DUI.
The city or county government is not first in line for its share of the total.
First an offender must pay any restitution ordered by the court. After that,
funds that get a cut may include: the Peace Officer Annuity and Benefit Fund;
the Superior Court clerks' retirement fund; the sheriffs' retirement fund; the
peace officer, prosecutor and indigent defense fund; the law library; the jail
construction and staffing fund; the Georgia Crime Victims Emergency Fund; and
then the local government.
In line after the local government: a drug abuse treatment and education fund,
the local victims assistance program, the Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund, a
crime lab fee, a driver education fund, and for habitual violators whose
pictures are published in local newspapers, a publication fee.
The only solution
After repeated attempts to get the computer to compute all this for the clerks,
the city finally decided the only way to do it was take the old money and plug
it into the system as if it were new money coming in.
So, two experienced court clerks go through each case, take the amount paid and
type it in again after voiding the balance, and make sure the computer
recognizes what kind of crime is involved and that the fine is only partially
paid.
Demps said senior workers were chosen for this not because they're salaried --
they're not getting paid overtime, but instead are being paid $12 an hour to do
this on their own time -- but because they're more likely to recognize errors
than rookies hired just for this job.
"We're going to check this three or four times," Demps said.
He said the first time a clerk voided a balance to type in and divide the $200
that had been paid, the computer changed the total owed from $625 to $1,225.
The rumors
Last year, when the city manager revealed plans to cut up to 150 government
jobs to balance the city's general fund, rumors immediately spread that
Columbus wasn't collecting all the revenue it should. Some said Superior Court
Clerk Linda Pierce had $5 million she hadn't turned over to the city.
Pierce said that $5 million is all the money she has in all accounts, and it
doesn't all belong to the government. Demps said it includes money being held
until civil suits are decided, after which it may be awarded to litigants.
He said the last report the clerk got from the city's Information Technology
Department showed $1,075,000 in old fines yet to be dispersed. But that wasn't
accurate, because it counted some partially paid fines from which the money
already had been distributed.
Some of the old cases for which fines are yet to be distributed may date back
to 1987, Demps said. That would make them about as old as the city computer
system that calculates their dispersal.
Contact Tim Chitwood
at 706-571-8508 or
tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com
DIVIDING THE MONEY
Here by priority is a list of funds that get a cut of court fines:
1. Peace Officer Annuity and Benefit Fund
2. Superior Court Clerks' Retirement Fund
3. Sheriffs' Retirement Fund
4. Peace Officer, Prosecutor and Indigent Defense Fund (POPIDF ?A)
5. Peace Officer, Prosecutor and Indigent Defense Fund (POPIDF ?B)
6. Law Library (LL)
7. Jail Construction and Staffing (JAIL)
8. Georgia Crime Victims Emergency Fund (CVEF)
9. City/County Governing Authority
10. Drug Abuse Treatment and Education Fund (DATE)
11. Local Victim Assistance Program (LVAP)
12. Brain and Spinal Injury Trust Fund (BSITF)
13. Crime Lab Fee (CLF)
14. Driver Education and Training Fund (DETF)
(Any restitution ordered by a judge must be paid in full before this list takes
effect.)
Source: Georgia Superior Court Clerks Cooperative Authority. TRY IT YOURSELF
Got online access? Go to the Georgia Superior Court Clerks Cooperative
Authority (GSCCCA) site at www.courttrax.org and see how differently fines may
be dispersed, like this: ?? Click on "online calculator." ?? Scroll down and
choose the type of case (felony, drug case, DUI, etc.) ?? Enter an amount for
the total fine in "base fine/court cost amount." ?? Click "partial payment" and
enter an amount to be paid in installments. ?? Click "calculate total due." Go
back and change the type of case, and see how differently the fine is divided
among the various funds.
? 2006 Ledger-Enquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.ledgerenquirer.com
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