Beaufort County leaders to auditor, treasurer: End feud now

Beaufort County leaders, including County Council members and top administrators, are calling on Treasurer Maria Walls and Auditor Jim Beckert to end a long-simmering feud over who has more authority when it comes to property tax billing and collection.

At the heart of the issue is a disagreement over the autonomy of the respective offices and what role each should play in setting deadlines, printing and mailing tax bills, and collecting revenue.

Beckert has pushed for his office — which is traditionally in charge of calculating how much tax property owners owe — to take over the printing of bills and implement a strict mailing deadline of Sept. 30.

Once the bills are mailed, Walls would be required by law to begin collecting tax payments.

“We will not be prepared by Sept. 30,” she said earlier this week. “... This was expressed to the auditor on multiple occasions, and it went unheeded.”

In past years, the tax rolls have gone from the auditor’s office to the treasurer in a collaborative effort double-check for inconsistencies.

Beckert has said repeatedly that state law requires his office to send bills by Sept. 30, and doing so would give taxpayers the benefit of having more time to pay.

But there is ongoing disagreement over when the bills must go out and who has the authority to print and mail them.

“I have looked at the statues over and over again,” county administrator Gary Kubic said earlier this week. “And I haven’t read anywhere that the tax bill must be in the mail by (a specific) date.”

He and his staff “would like to be facilitators” between the two parties, Kubic said.

However Kubic — an administrator rather than an elected official — can’t simply demand that the parties “sit down and use common sense to come up with a solution,” he said.

But the County Council can — and that’s precisely what the governing body is doing.

“There is an impasse here between two parties,” Councilman Jerry Stewart said earlier this week.

“I’m frustrated ... and I don’t think this is (the) job” of administrative staff to mediate a dispute between two elected officials, he said.

“For gosh sakes, (Wall’s and Beckert’s offices) are just next door to each other. They cant talk?” Stewart asked rhetorically. “I don’t care if they are independent elected officials, they work for the county.”

The council moved earlier this week to give Kubic the authority to authorize the printing of the tax bills only after both Walls and Beckert have met and agreed on the content of the bills no later than Oct. 15.

This effectively bars the auditor’s office from acting unilaterally to calculate and send the bills by Sept. 30.

If the parties cannot come to an agreement, Kubic could call for a special meeting of the County Council to decide how to proceed, Councilman Stu Rodman said.

Councilman Bill McBride said, “I wish this wasn’t on our table, but we are down to the wire, and a decision needs to be made.”

County tax payments are due by Jan. 15.

“The bottom line is the auditor and the treasurer need to sit down and figure out how we are going to make things work,” Kubic said Wednesday.

That has yet to happen, but Kubic said a meeting between the parties is set for Friday.

This story was originally published September 14, 2016 at 12:33 PM with the headline "Beaufort County leaders to auditor, treasurer: End feud now."