Some taxpayers who overpaid the county will get their money back, plus an interest rate of 2.43 percent, a county finance committee recommended Monday.
That interest rate will be on top of whatever interest the county charged the taxpayer, county special counsel Mike Carter said. The money will go back to the property owner and not a mortgage company.
The committee will make the recommendation to the County Commission as the county tries to move past a federal probe into the county Trustee’s Office.
A federal investigation probed whether the Trustee’s Office mishandled payments made toward delinquent property taxes by those in Chapter 13 bankruptcy, according to newspaper archives. The county is accused of failing to give credit for partial payments, so the county received more from property owners than it legally was owed.
The County Commission’s finance board met for about one hour and decided these 3,000 files of taxpayers, who overpaid the county by about $300,000, should receive compensation for the loss of the use of their money. But it won’t be as simple as it sounds, according to Carter.