By Richard Crawford

For most residents of Carver County, a $900,000 budget adjustment made by the County Board Tuesday means the proposed property taxes mailed to them last month are valid once again.

About 20 residents attended a special meeting to sort out what their tax bills meant as a result of a $189 million assessing error that skewed budget plans and recent tax notices.

The problem was linked to a faulty estimated market value for a Waconia property that was mistakenly valued at $189 million instead of $18,900.

The faulty value was discovered when the affected property owner notified county staff. By that time, preliminary budgets had been drafted and proposed tax notices were sent out for the county, city of Waconia and Waconia School District.

The County Assessor’s Office entered the incorrect value on a parcel during a data entry procedure resulting in extra zeroes being added to the value, explained Mark Lundgren, director of assessment, property tax records and taxpayer services.

“They hit an enter key instead of a field exit key and $18,900 became $189,000,000,” Lundgren said.

A proofing system failed to catch the error, said Lundgren, who said procedures are being reviewed to ensure the problem won’t happen again.

As a result, the county, city of Waconia and Waconia School District prepared budgets with the expectation that they’d be receiving about $2.5 million more in revenue ($900,000 for the county and about $800,000 more for the city and school district).

In the past two weeks, county staff have been scrambling to correct the error and inform the city of Waconia and Waconia School District of the problem. Revised tax notices were sent out to Waconia properties, which boosted the proposed property taxes up substantially.

Several Waconia residents attended Tuesday’s meeting to get a handle on what their taxes will be in 2008.

The County Board trimmed $900,000 from its $101 million budget to align its budget with the tax estimates sent out last month. Waconia city officials also have indicated they plan to reduce their proposed budget by $750,000 to keep city taxes in line with tax notices. Waconia School District was expected to consider its budget last night.

County staff and commissioners apologized for the error and said it won’t happen again.

Residents in attendance were more focused on figuring out what their tax burden will be and several expressed concerns about property value increases at a time when the housing market has been soft.

Lundgren assured residents that the data entry error had no bearing on property valuations elsewhere.

The County Board unanimously approved the 2008 budget after trimming $900,000 from a variety of departments.

The cuts included such things as a $125,000 semi tractor for Public Works, $16,000 in library reference books, and delaying the hiring of positions that are vacated during the year.

One cut in the Property Records, Assessment budget will defer payment to 2009 for property tax assessment software. A parenthetical note attached to that item read “totally unrelated to data entry error.”

 Richard Crawford can be reached at editor@chanvillager.com.