PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — The Treasurer’s Office of Calvert County confirmed that 41,000 property tax bills were mailed out in August, despite some initial delays.
The new county treasurer, Amanda Dolina, said that when people are ready to pay, they can do so online or in the drop box at the treasurer’s office. Some of the delays were due to a system upgrade that led to error codes. The system issues were remedied.
Other roadblocks included vendor issues, staffing changes, returned mail and incorrect inserts in people’s mailings. The corrected insert is available online and at the treasurer’s office window.
County Administrator Linda Turner said they had some issues this year specifically with printing and billing vendors that meant they had to resend certain bills.
“The list of challenges is just to say, the county team still was working very hard to work through each of these challenges. It was just to provide an explanation to our residents of what we were experiencing. It is not the quality we expect from our county team and we will do better,” Turner said.
She added that the county team held a debrief to understand what they experienced this year and implemented practice steps and a new timeline to align with the new system. Turner said they “worked backwards” to create a new timeline and have selected a new vendor for certain parts of the process.
The property tax rate was unchanged this year. Any increases in tax bills were due to property assessments by the State Department of Assessments and Taxation. Calvert County is the 17th lowest in Maryland for property tax rates.
Dolina and Turner asked the Board of County Commissioners to consider putting the entire property tax bill into a single department in the treasurer’s office — including planning, prep and billing. The board approved this request.
“I think the public needs to know that we learned a lot from this, what we put in place will be far superior than anything we’ve dealt with in the past,” said Commissioner Catherine Grasso.
Tax bills are due Sept. 30.
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The property tax bills have been late for over 8 years! All your excuses are just excuses. Try telling the truth sometime! You have been running an incompetent Finance and Budget Department since 2018! Check the facts! Look at the published budgets. Check prior year mailings – when was the last time they were received in July? Other counties are able to get them out by July 1! When was the last time Calvert County met July 1?
Late? How about why do they keep increasing?
Seems like mine increases every year. Calvert the lowest, I don’t think so.