Published: November 07, 2009 09:35 pm      

Unemployed woman asks county for 'a little help here'

Barbara Ong of Middlebury has a bone to pick with the county.

Having recently been unemployed for nearly two years, Ong — like so many others in Elkhart County these days — is worried about her ability to pay her property tax bill by Tuesday’s deadline.

While the county’s current policy allows taxpayers to pay their bills in installments, each installment is accompanied by a penalty — penalties that Ong says can quickly add up to a significant chunk of money.

“Each time you pay a portion of the total bill, you have to pay a fine,” Ong said. “So, say you want to break it up into four payments. You’d have to pay a fine with each one of those. People are just barely scraping by right now. A lot of us can’t afford that.”

What’s more, Ong recently found out through an Aug. 7 memo from the Department of Local Government Finance that counties have the ability to offer installment or automatic deduction plans without the need for penalties.

“I got my bill last Thursday and it was quite a bit higher than last year, so I called up the Treasurer’s office and told them I could pay half now and half at the end of the year,” Ong said. “I asked them if there was anything they could do so I wouldn’t have to pay a penalty, because those fees add up quick. I told them my history — that I was divorced, I was out of a job, and I have three kids — and they basically said ‘too bad, there’s nothing we can do. It’s the state’s problem.’”

Not satisfied, Ong preceded to call up her state representatives to further investigate the matter, eventually contacting both the offices of Sen. Carlin Yoder and state Rep. Wes Culver.

“Carlin called me back, and then someone from Culver’s office called back, and they were incredibly helpful,” Ong explained. “They basically told me that no, it’s not the state’s problem and the county is actually sovereign when it comes to things like this. After hearing this, I decided to call the governor’s office and got a hold of an assistant who informed me of the Aug. 7 memo by the DLGF that was sent out to all the counties saying ‘lets give these guys a chance and put up an alternate payment plan.’ ”

Distributed by DLGF Commissioner Timothy J. Rushenberg, the Aug. 7 memo essentially states the DLGF’s recommendation to county officials that such monthly installment or automatic deduction plans be established.

“County officials are not required to offer taxpayers the option of paying through monthly deductions or monthly installments,” the memo states, “but based upon the tough economic times being experienced, the Department respectfully requests that such a plan at least be considered.”

The memo then goes on to outline exactly what the county would have to do to implement such plans, including what documents would have to be provided to taxpayers, how payment amounts would be determined, and what happens if a taxpayer fails to fulfill their payment obligations under such a plan.

After reading the memo, Ong again contacted the treasurer’s office.

“He basically told me that the county’s current system works just fine as it is,” Ong said. “That really got me angry, because this is something that could save a lot of people a lot of money. I called these people for help, and said ‘look, I’m a good citizen, I pay my taxes, I work hard, and I just want a little help here,’ and it was like talking to a brick wall.”

As the county’s fiscal body, passage of such a penalty-free payment plan would have to go through the Elkhart County Council.

However, according to County Council President John Letherman, such a memo has never come across his desk.

“We haven’t ever had it proposed to us,” Letherman said. “I don’t know if we would have been positive or negative on the plan, but we haven’t had it proposed to us, at least as far as I know.”

According to Letherman, the county receives numerous memos on a weekly basis from organizations such as the DLGF, and whether or not they actually make it before the council is often not up to them.

“We get deluged with memos from these guys all the time,” Letherman said. “I kind of leave it up to the auditor and the treasurer and the guys who deal directly with this stuff to kind of filter through all that and get the ones to us they think we should see.”

Large amount of work

According to Larry Ernest, treasurer for the county, the DLGF’s memo was received by his office back in August, however he chose not to inform the council of the memo, primarily due to the large amount of work that would be involved in putting such a penalty-free plan into place.

“With the statute (Ong) is referring to, the council has to authorize for those installment payments or deductions and there are many, many different steps to setting something like that up,” Ernest said. “There’s a lot of paperwork, and a lot of manpower that would go into that. It’s a lot more work for the county, and we’ve already got an unofficial plan that works without a lot of that extra work, so why go that extra route?”

Ernest said there just isn’t enough staff at the current time to take on such a labor-intensive change.

While Letherman conceded that implementation of a penalty-free plan is unlikely before Tuesday, he did indicate that he would not be opposed to entertaining the possibility of such a plan in the future.

“This may be something we should bring up at our next council meeting, because it may help some people,” Letherman said. “I’ll try to get that on the agenda. I think we’d probably be willing to help work with some people that are really serious about paying, but just can’t right now.”

In the meantime, Ong said she will most likely just have to eat the penalty from her first installment payment and continue working toward getting some form of the DLGF proposal passed by the county.

“I want to do the right thing, but I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Ong said. “I’m not going to give up though, because it’s never too late to help people out, and there are a lot of people in Elkhart County who could really use a break.

“The way I see it, people are basically good, and they’ll pay the money they owe. But during these hard economic times, let’s give them some options on how to do it.”