{"id":37008,"date":"2022-12-01T02:39:48","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T09:39:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/error-leads-to-uncollected-781000-for-ignacio-schools\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:35:19","slug":"error-leads-to-uncollected-781000-for-ignacio-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/error-leads-to-uncollected-781000-for-ignacio-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Error leads to uncollected $781,000 for Ignacio schools"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ignacio
Ignacio Middle School Principal Chris deKay will leave the school and become the district\u2019s curriculum director in July. Multiple high-level positions are in transition this year in the Ignacio School District.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A human error made in the La Plata County Finance Department meant that property owners in the Ignacio School District were incorrectly charged too low a rate last year, shorting the Ignacio School District $781,000 this year. That includes $80,000 in specific ownership taxes<\/a>, which are levied on vehicles.<\/p>\n

The mistake was first noticed by the district\u2019s auditor, Tim Mayberry, who brought it to the attention of La Plata County Assessor Carrie Woodson in early September. Adam Rogers, the director of finance for the county, brought the issue before county commissioners during board discussion time on Oct. 5.<\/p>\n

Ignacio School District Superintendent Chris deKay said there was \u201cno impact to the students or staff,\u201d thanks to savvy financial planning in previous years.<\/p>\n

The county will collect the revenue in next year\u2019s taxes.<\/p>\n

It will take an increase of 0.29 mills \u2013 meaning 29 cents for every $1,000 of assessed property value \u2013 to recoup the uncollected revenue. Homes assessed at $250,000 can expect approximately an extra $50 tacked onto their property taxes next year; homes assessed at $400,000 will pay about $82.<\/p>\n

The county was nothing less than forthcoming and apologetic about the mistake, deKay said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we make a mistake, we talk about it, we shine a light on it and then we fix it,\u201d County Manager Chuck Stevens said in board discussion time on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The mistake occurred when someone in the finance department entered last year\u2019s mill levy into the system. It passed through two more county departments unnoticed before the paperwork was sent to the state.<\/p>\n

In the Oct. 5 meeting, Rogers told the commissioners he expected the brunt of uncollected tax would fall on the oil and gas industry. The increase will go before the board on Dec. 19 and mailers will be sent to affected households the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cMistakes happen and we\u2019re human and three sets of eyes were looking at it and nobody caught it and thank you for being here today,\u201d Commissioner Marsha Porter-Norton told the county employees who brought the mistake to the board\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

Upon receiving notice, commissioners pivoted quickly to discussion of how best to inform the public in a transparent manner and how to ease any burden that an unexpected addition to tax bills could foist upon residents of the Ignacio School District.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, they decided the best solution was simply to recoup the money next year. That means for anyone who sold or purchased property last year, the former party avoided the tax while the latter must pay the heightened rate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really respect the fact that when we contacted the county, that they owned the mistake,\u201d deKay said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been working very hard with them to make sure that we can rectify that without any impact to the school district or the students, and we have been able to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

County did not apply the increased mill levy rate in 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,2765,1680,1264],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-ignacio-school-district-11-jt","tag-la-plata-county-commissioners","tag-property-tax"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83527,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37008\/revisions\/83527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37008"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}