$41 million tax bill goes out to islanders

By Stan Matthews
County Communications Program Manager

On Thursday, Feb. 12, San Juan County Treasurer’s Office employees stacked 11,600 tax bills into 30 mail trays and drove them to the post office in a yellow County truck. The total of all the bills is just over $41 million dollars. It didn’t take long to confirm their delivery.

“We’re already getting calls,” Treasurer Jan Sears said Friday, “Most of them are asking about the Stormwater Utility fee. ”

The Stormwater fee is back, after being overturned by a referendum in November of 2007. The new fee was passed by the Council this year to fund projects to protect groundwater, deal with localized flooding, and reduce the pollution of fresh water and marine waters by contaminated storm run-off. A means of funding the projects is required to comply with the state Growth Management Act.

Other taxes and fees which are not new, but still notable, are assessed by the more than 40 individual taxing districts in the County. The Treasurer calculates tax bills for those districts and includes them on the property tax bills sent to different parts of the County.

Sears says that each year her office gets dozens of calls with basic questions about the information on tax bills.  The County has posted a sample 2009 property tax statement with explanations of the different types of information it contains. The sample bill is available on-line here.

Sears reminds taxpayers that they have the option of paying taxes in two payments without penalty, with the first payment due on April 30 and the second due no later than October 31; however missing a payment deadline can be expensive.

The penalty for not making the April payment is 3% of the unpaid balance plus an additional 1 percent for each month the balance remains unpaid. Missing the October 31 payment triggers an additional 8 percent fine, and the interest continues to be charged at 1 percent per month.

The Treasurer asks taxpayers to remember that each tax bill must be paid with a single check, even if the property is owned by multiple owners.