Osage County officials consider rolling back property taxes

UPDATE: Osage County officials are still trying to figure out how to recoup resident losses after overcharging them $95,000 in property tax over the past four years.

County clerk Patrick Steele, who made the original miscalculation, said the mistake “wasn’t anything intentional.”

He said he got a new formula from the state auditor’s office that will help him accurately calculate the property tax rate this time around, and it could lead to the county charging residents less to make up for it.

Presiding commissioner Dave Dudenhoeffer confirmed they were looking into a property tax rollback, but also mentioned they might be able to transfer revenue from the county’s use tax.

The overage amounted to about one dollar and change per person. Resident Mike Mantle said he thinks rolling back the tax is a viable option.

“I don’t think it’ll be money back,” he said. “It’s a small mistake when you think about how many people there is, and it was over a four year period.”

ORIGINAL STORY: Osage County commissioners will meet one day after a state audit of the county was released, showing that the county over-collected $95,000 from property taxpayers.

The county commission generally meets every Tuesday and Thursday at 8:30 a.m.

The agenda for the meeting listed the state audit as a topic of discussion, as well as a separate financial audit.

According to the Nicole Galloway, the state auditor, the commission told the auditor’s office that it plans to repay the taxpayers within the next five years.

Galloway said the over-collection was a simple miscalculation of a property tax formula that gets used when additional sales tax is collected.

The audit showed the county also underpaid the school district by $2,100, county officials didn’t have proper passwords and cyber security policies in place, and that the Sheriff’s Office wasn’t bookkeeping properly.