Southampton fixing improper assessments

Southampton Village officials are working to reassess more than 100 homes following the recent discovery that a series of clerical mistakes dating to 2004 led to improper assessments.

The error was caught last year when the Southampton Association, a civic group, noticed that the assessment for a property of former town trustee Paul Robinson was not changed after renovations were completed on one of his homes. The group alerted the state attorney general's office, which referred the group back to the village saying it was a local matter, said Mayor Mark Epley.

While researching that complaint, village officials looked at 2,500 permits dating back to 2004 and found that 108 homes were never reassessed after obtaining a certificate of occupancy.

According to officials, a building department clerk who is no longer with the village would "close out" the month a few days early and exclude the remaining days from the building report.

As a result, permits filed at the end of the month were left out of the process and were not received by the tax assessors or the tax receiver's office, according to Epley. Most of the mistakes happened during 2004 and 2005, said Epley and Village Administrator Stephen Funsch.

"What we found is that, in the system, there were no checks and balances," Epley said. "We have since corrected that."

At a village trustee meeting on Thursday, two residents spoke about the error, saying it was the village's responsibility to ensure safeguards are in place. Epley and other trustees agreed, adding that a newly installed computer system would now catch a similar error.

Epley and Funsch added that the now-updated permits total $916,000 in additional assessed value for the village, a small amount in comparison to its relative wealth. Southampton Village, home to many multimillion-dollar mansions, has a total village assessment of $11.1 billion within its 6.8-acre boundaries, excluding nonprofits such as schools, churches and Southampton Hospital, according to Epley.

A rough calculation by Funsch determined that about $690,000 was lost in tax collection over the seven-year period. Two homes were under-assessed. One house assessment change was only $6.79. The highest assessment change was a house on Meadow Lane of $10,190.

Funsch estimates that a house in the village assessed at $3 million probably overpaid taxes by about $50 a year because of the mistake.