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mobert_roses t1_jaanzmk wrote

Reply to comment by WhyImNotDoingWork in Anyone else have this problem in their town this year? by WhyImNotDoingWork

This is not showing all time delinquent taxes for each year, but:

In the first column, amount of taxes still due from the indicated tax year after their due date as of Jan. 1st, 2022.

In the second column, amount of delinquent taxes for the indicated tax year collected in calendar year 2022.

In the third column, amount of delinquent taxes still due for the indicated tax year as of Dec. 31st, 2022.

This is a very poorly designed table, and I understand your confusion. Also, I work in municipal finance, and I appreciate you doing your due diligence to hold your public officials to account. G-d knows my exposure to crappy graphics is the only reason I have an inkling of what is going on here, lol.

I would encourage you to dig up town reports from the last 5 years and compare the data in them. I hope you will find that this is not astronomically high, but who knows. It does look at least a little high. No clerk worth his or her salt is going to begrudge you looking into town finances.

One other thing: at the office where I work, we do not go tracking down escrow payments that don’t show up on time, because it is not strictly our responsibility to keep track of which tax accounts are being paid through escrow. I would have a stern conversation with your lender and consider asking Wolcott’s delinquent tax collector if some of the fees on your tax bill could be waived given that you thought it was being paid by escrow.

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WhyImNotDoingWork OP t1_jaaseeu wrote

The fees are all paid by the escrow company. All escrow payments are all grouped together and sent to the town as one payment. The town claims they never received that payment, which represents the large amount that was not collected and then was. The town collected a bunch of fees from the escrow company. Seemingly no harm to people in the town, but still fishy. Everything was paid eventually and never cost me more. Just seems really weird and convenient for the town this all happened.

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mobert_roses t1_jaat7ts wrote

Interesting. I’ve admittedly never been asked to handle escrow payments, but I’m gonna ask my coworkers about them tomorrow. To be clear, I don’t work in Wolcott, but in one of the state’s larger municipalities.

I would still encourage you to look at previous years’ reports, even if a city employee told you that. Sometimes city employees should be directing questions to the appropriate coworker rather than trying to answer them themselves, if that makes sense.

Your Clerk’s office should have copies of every recent annual report.

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