$121,900 House Valued At $400 Million, Blamed For Town Budget Woes (PIC)

[matcom]

<snip>

VALPARAISO, Ind. --A house erroneously valued at $400 million is being blamed for budget shortfalls and possible layoffs in municipalities and school districts in northwest Indiana.

An outside user of Porter County's computer system may have triggered the mess by accidentally changing the value of the Valparaiso house, said Sharon Lippens, director of the county's information technologies and service department. The house had been valued at $121,900 before the glitch.

County Treasurer Jim Murphy said the home usually carried about $1,500 in property taxes; this year, it was billed $8 million.

The homeowner, Dennis Charnetzky, declined to comment about the situation to The Associated Press on Friday.

Lippens said her agency identified the mistake and told the county auditor's office how to correct it. But the $400 million value ended up on documents that were used to calculate tax rates.

Most local officials did not learn about the mistake until Tuesday, when 18 government taxing units were asked to return a total of $3.1 million of tax money. The city of Valparaiso and the Valparaiso Community School Corp. were asked to return $2.7 million. As a result, the school system has a $200,000 budget shortfall, and the city loses $900,000.

Officials struggled to figure out how the mistake got into the system and how it could have been prevented. City leaders said Thursday the error could cause layoffs and cost-cutting measures.

Lippens said the outside user changed the property value, most likely while trying to access another program while using the county's enhanced access system, which charges users a fee for access to public records that are not otherwise available on the Internet.

Lippens said the user probably tried to access a real estate record display by pressing R-E-D, but accidentally typed R-E-R, which brought up an assessment program written in 1995. The program is no longer in use, and technology officials did not know it could be accessed.

The county treasurer said his office spotted the $400 million error after it caused an improper billing, but apparently it wasn't corrected elsewhere.

"It didn't get fixed all the way," Murphy said.

http://www.boston.com/news/odd/articles/2006/02/10/ind_house_wrongly_valued_at_400_million?mode=PF

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. Billed $8 million in property taxes?

Did they think Warren Buffet moved in next door?

[matcom]

2. must be the curb appeal

:sarcasm:

[KitchenWitch]

3. RIIIIIGHT!

[matcom]

4. c'mon

the blue newspaper box is a LOVELY contrast and the shrubbery is OBVIOUSLY well maintained :D

[KitchenWitch]

5. Very true - and the siding is immaculate

Maybe the town can go after Orville Redenbacher's estate for the shortfall!

:sarcasm:

[matcom]

6. are those skylights i see?

:thumbsup:

[KitchenWitch]

7. Too small - I think they are roof vents.

[matcom]

8. well what will they think of next?

disguising roof vents as skylights or even solar panels!

that house is state of the art i tells ya!

[KitchenWitch]

9. I bet all the kitchen appliances are Harvest Gold.

Such tasteful kitchen decor.

[matcom]

10. i'm sold if there is a fridge around back

how handy to have a full-sized fridge right next to the BBQ area. :bounce:

[KitchenWitch]

11. Can I come live with you?

:bounce:

[matcom]

12. only if you don't mind making out in the back seat of my car

don't worry, its up on blocks so it won't roll away with us in it :D

[KitchenWitch]

13. Did it suddenly get all hot in here?

:evilgrin:

[matcom]

14. wanna switch places?

there is a hole in the floorboard on this side of the car and there is a nice breeze coming through :P

[Crazy Dave]

15. Defense contractors buy republican politician's homes at.....

three times their estimated value all the time.

[purr]

16. Shit I'd sell the beast and make one hell of a profit off of it.

but $8 million in taxes? OUCH!! That hurts!

[Bemis]

17. How stupid are these town officials...............

not to realize that within a single year they had a $400 million dollar increase
in ratables that they didn't know was being built?

Most of the towns around my area are extremely aware of ongoing construction and
what ratables they have coming onto their tax rolls. Large projects that would
boost the tax rolls by $400mil would not just be dumped in their laps without
them knowing who, what and especially when that property would be able to be
taxed.

Any one year increase like that would have almost all of the tax and building
officials scrambling to find out what the hell was going on.

But to just accept the sudden increase and actually plan accordingly - even
sending out the anticipated monies to the school districts and other agencies
ready points to some incredibly stupid and lazy public officials.