Will Beaufort County raise your property taxes? Rate dispute comes to a head Monday
Beaufort County Council members have a decision to make Monday evening that determines how much property owners pay in taxes this year. And they have to make it soon. Tax bills must be mailed in the next month.
They can decide either to raise property taxes higher than the rates they approved in June, increasing the amount taxpayers must pay, or they can keep tax rates the same and fight the amounts that County Auditor Jim Beckert calculated for the tax bills.
Beckert did not return a call for comment Friday.
The county has until Nov. 15 to send out tax bills, County Treasurer Maria Walls said. The county had planned to send them out by Oct. 20, but a difference between the amount on the bills and the amount council approved could postpone that date.
The discussion scheduled for Monday stems from several inconsistencies related to the county’s 2020-21 budget, which was approved in late June.
When the council approved the budget, it set the millage rate at 65.22. A millage rate is the number of dollars of taxes assessed for each $1,000 of property value. A rate of 10 mills means that $10 in tax is levied on every $1,000 in assessed value.
But the rates calculated by the county — how much money in property taxes the county says it needs for county operations, higher education, real property, Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services, Beaufort Memorial Hospital, economic development, county capital and county debt service — add up to a millage rate of 64.2.
County Finance Director Hayes Williams said the 65.22 millage rate was calculated in error.
The bigger issue is that the tax bills, calculated by Beckert, the auditor, show that property owners will be taxed more for the county’s real property program than what the council approved in June.
They also show that property owners will be taxed slightly less for school debt than what the council approved.
Those two rates on the tax bills do not match the rates approved by the county in June. Therefore, if residents ask why they’re being taxed more than last year, the county has no way to explain the difference.
County officials say that Beckert, in his authority as auditor, unilaterally changed the millage rates from what the council approved in June.
Treasurer Walls said her team discovered the difference when reviewing the bills before sending them out.
“It is very important to me that our citizens see that their government is working for them in all ways,” she said. “Accuracy in the taxation process is vital to our citizens feeling that way. Nothing in what we discovered is the treasurer’s office’s responsibility. We reviewed it because I am never going to send a taxpayer something that is inaccurate.”
Council Chair Joe Passiment said council members on Monday night will discuss the differences between the tax bills and what they approved in June.
“We set the budget so we would have the same millage rate [as last year] and [Beckert] has changed that,” he said Friday. “Now we have to make a decision.”
“Everybody has the right to question ‘how come my tax bill doesn’t match the ordinance,’” he said.
Asked if Beckert’s decision to tax citizens differently from what the governing body approved was wrong, he said, “I don’t know if it’s an egregious offense or if it’s what he believed he’s allowed to do.”
Walls, the treasurer, noted, “Every person in Beaufort County has a right to know where those tax rates are coming from and how they were derived. If the auditor wants to set that millage and have a difference between what council approved, then I do think there needs to be clearer communication to the public on how that was derived.”
“The logical sequence of events is: We set the budget, he sets the bills to meet the budget and then the bills are turned over to the treasurer,” Passiment said. “It could end up in court, but we don’t want that to happen.”
At its 6 p.m. meeting Monday, Beaufort County Council plans to discuss this issue and possibly fix the differences between the ordinance and tax bills. The meeting will be streamed live on Facebook and on the County Channel.
Beckert’s legal problems
On top of the dispute over the tax bills, Beckert also faces legal problems.
In the past two months, two lawsuits were filed against Beckert alleging harassment and verbal abuse of female officials — County Treasurer Maria Walls and former County Chief Financial Officer Alicia Holland.
Walls sued him for stalking, harassing and secretly recording her over multiple years. The suit also accused Beckert of making inappropriate comments about her pregnancy.
On Sept. 18, Beaufort County sued Beckert, accusing him of refusing to put a new user fee on Hilton Head property owners’ tax bills.
In the wake of the suits, Beaufort County moved Beckert out of his office — which was previously in the same building as Walls’ office — to “preserve the rights of all individuals involved in current lawsuits as they make their way through the courts.”
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
