PERRYSBURG, OH (WTOL) - Perrysburg property owners will be getting their money back sooner than originally planned.
Last week WTOL 11 learned of an over-collection of a Perrysburg Schools Levy. It amounted to a near $2 million mistake by the Wood County Auditor's Office.
"I was a little upset," said Perrysburg property owner Gary Doner.
He felt upset when he found out he wouldn't be fully paid back for a school levy over-collection until 2020, and that the Auditor's Office intended to over-collect again in the July tax bill.
Doner said he took his concern to the Auditor.
"I told him, if he didn't make some more timely correction of the bill, I would file a lawsuit against the county," he said.
By Thursday afternoon, Wood County Auditor Matt Oestreich got approval from the state to make the correction on July tax bills, instead of waiting to issue the credits in 2019 and 2020.
"If they paid the full year, they'll be getting a refund check issued from my office. If they paid just the first half, they'll get a reduction on second half taxes," explained Oestreich.
He said his office will start cutting checks for folks owed refunds in July or August.
Oestreich said for those who are in escrow, the escrow company will likely make the reduction on second half taxes.
Oestreich said adjustments are made one parcel at a time and there are more than 13,300 of them in the Perrysburg School District to correct. That means the Auditor's office will be busy the next month.
A plan is in place to have all the adjustments done by the May 18th deadline, set by the Treasurer, to have second half tax bills done.
"We've got some staff dedicated to it.The target is about 470 parcels per day to get it done," said Oestreich.
He added that it takes about a minute a parcel to make the adjustment.
Oestreich said folks who were over-taxed, but have since sold their homes, won't be refunded personally.The credit will be made to the current owner. He said it's because taxes always follow the parcel, not the person.
He also said there will be extra eyes going over levies in the future, to try and keep a mistake like this from happening again.
"We've brought somebody else in who normally doesn't deal with taxes that are going to look at this and go through every levy one by one and the reduction factors applied to them," he said.
Doner said he's satisfied with the solution.
"I'm just glad that the problem has resolved itself favorably for the taxpayers of Perrysburg," he said.
Those who are interested in following along the Auditor's Office website to see if an adjustment was made to a their can so here.
Anyone with any questions can call 419-373-4917.
The other player involved in this situation is Perrysburg schools.
The district was originally going to put the taxes that were over-collected into a holding account when the plan was to issue credits in 2019 and 2020.
Superintendent Tom Hosler released a statement about the change Friday afternoon.
"Perrysburg Schools will support and work with whatever decision the Wood County Auditor's Office makes regarding the timing of correcting their over-collection error."
