Lawrence County owed $4.6 M in taxes
Friday, December 30, 2005 11:11 AM EST article source
It’s the Top 10 list nobody wants to be on.
Lawrence County Treasurer Stephen Dale Burcham and his staff have compiled a list of the 10 parcels of land within the county on which the most delinquent taxes are owed, how much is owed on each parcel and how much money is owed the county altogether in delinquent property taxes. He released that list Thursday afternoon.
The list of delinquencies came from the 2004 tax list and the number of delinquencies on that list total 83 pages with 85 names to a page — and literally millions of unpaid dollars.
“There are 7,529 delinquent parcels in the county,” Burcham said. “Of that, the amount owed totals $4,656,509.24.”
That’s a 22-percent increase over the 2003 tax delinquency list, Burcham said. If $4 million doesn’t sound like a lot of money, consider that Franklin County, with more than 1 million people and more than 370,000 parcels of real estate, only has $14 million in delinquencies. Lawrence County has 52,000 parcels of land, a population of 62,319 and more than $4 million in delinquencies. Burcham is in the process of contacting his counterparts in more immediate neighbors to see how Lawrence compares with, say, Scioto, or Meigs or Jackson counties.
The Greenup, Ky.,-based Lakeland Inc., which owns a one-story frame structure at 1224 N. Third St., Ironton, is the least desired spot at the top of Burcham’s list. Lakeland, Inc. owes Lawrence County $56,292.34, some of which has been owed since 1982, Burcham said.
Two parcels of land in Coal Grove that were formerly Ford Trucking Co. occupy the second and fourth spots on the list. Jenny Ford, listed as the owner of both parcels of land, owes $51,233.73 for one plot of land and $28,329.19 for the other.
Ashland Hospital Corporation, known commonly as King’s Daughters Medical Center, is third on the list, owing $31,685 in back taxes for its outreach center on U.S. 52 in Burlington.
Rounding out the top five is a parcel of property in Ironton owned by Dave and Vesta Thomas, on which $25,266.58 is owed.
Some of these amounts include various municipal assessments that have not been paid to the respective local governments and as a result are added to the county’s property tax bill. Such things as unpaid sewer bills or street assessments fall into this category.
Burcham said the point of his list is not to embarrass anyone, but to point out that the amount of money owed to the county is staggering and that the money not being paid is desperately needed to help operate essential government services, chief among them being the education of Lawrence County children. Roughly 65 cents of every property tax dollar goes to local school districts.
“We’re really looking to help people get into compliance,” Burcham said. “We can set up contracts to help people make payments. A lot of people don’t know that option is available to them. This is one means to get back into compliance. I think most people want to pay their taxes but perhaps some have had circumstances that prevented them from doing so.”
The mayors of Ironton, Coal Grove, South Point, Chesapeake and Proctorville have agreed to allow the treasurer’s office to have evening meetings at their city and village halls during the month of February. Those who wish to make payments arrangements may attend the meetings and speak to Burcham and members of his staff.
Those meetings are tentatively scheduled for Jan. 10 in Proctorville, Jan. 12 in Chesapeake, Jan. 17 in South Point, Jan. 19 in Coal Grove and Jan. 24 in Ironton. All meetings would be 6-8 p.m. Those who want to call the treasurer’s office and arrange to have a payment plan contract mailed to them may do so.
Those who attend the evening sessions should bring their property tax bill with them and should be prepared to make a payment at that time.
Burcham pointed out that when a homeowner makes a payment arrangement, interest accrual stops at that point.
For those who don’t heed the call to make payment arrangements, Burcham said he hopes to eventually have annual or semi-annual tax sales where delinquent parcels are either sold or auctioned off. In the past, such tax sales have netted hundreds of thousands of dollars but have not been conducted on a regular basis.