Panel to discuss tax software

Published 6:15 pm Tuesday, September 3, 2013

The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners’ Information Technology Committee meets at 3 p.m. Thursday to receive an update on the software conversion at the county’s tax office.

The tax office is upgrading its software so it can more efficient when it comes to processing tax-related information, tracking delinquent taxes and performing revaluations. The conversion is expected to take several months.

The county is spending about $300,000 on the conversion, said Tax Assessor Bobby Parker on Tuesday.

Farragut Systems, which is based in Durham, is providing the new software.

“We will convert everything that we have now into this new system. It will be a total conversion. We will put the new software system in and get rid of the old system we have right now,” Parker said.

In recent months, commissioners have said they want to move the county toward doing a better job of identifying delinquent taxpayers and collecting back taxes. At each of their recent regular meetings, the commissioners have been receiving lists of the top 50 delinquent tax accounts. They’ve made it clear the county will become even more aggressive in attempting to collect back taxes. Once unpaid taxes for a specific year become more than 19 years in arrears, the county no longer has the authority to go after those taxes.

They commissioners have also looked at conducting the next property revaluation earlier than usual. The county has been conducting a revaluation every eight years, which is required by law. Commissioner Stan Deatherage has been pushing for the earlier revaluation because he believes property values determined by the most-recent revaluation are not in line with market values.

The software conversion is expected to help improve the revaluation process.

The meeting will be conducted in the county administrative offices, 121 W. Third St., Washington.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

email author More by Mike