10/27/2021
State Auditor Nicole Galloway released
today an audit of the Greene County Collector. Missouri law requires an audit be performed when a
vacancy occurs in a county collector's office. The previous collector resigned
the office in February and a new collector was appointed on March 1.
The audit, which gave the office a rating of
"good," made one recommendation related to preparation and mailing of
personal property tax statements. Auditors found that a new personal property
assessment system implemented in January 2020 did not correctly transfer
assessed valuations for personal property to the property tax billing and
collection system used by the County Clerk and County Collector's offices. As a
result, county officials could not prepare accurate personal property tax
statements to mail to taxpayers by November 30, 2020.
County officials worked with the assessment system's
vendor to correct the issue and personal property assessments were accurately
transferred to the property tax billing and collection system in December 2020.
County officials then prepared and mailed the majority of the statements in
December 2020. Still, some taxpayers notified the County Collector that they
received inaccurate statements or did not receive statements at all. County
officials eventually corrected these issues and mailed new statements to
affected taxpayers in January 2021 and extended the deadline for payment for
all taxpayers to February 28, 2021.
The audit recommends that the new County Collector
work with the County Commission, County Assessor, and County Clerk to ensure
accurate personal property tax statements are prepared and mailed in compliance
with state law.
A complete copy of the audit report can be found here.
