Luzerne County Controller Walter Griffith said a recent audit performed by his office obtained a refund for a Duryea property owner forced to pay too much for real estate taxes last year.
Griffith credited new internal auditor Lisa Cope for identifying the overpayment, with assistance from auditor II Nancy DeFluri.
“It wasn’t by dumb luck that this was found. It took perseverance,” Griffith said. “The taxpayer was real happy.”
According to the audit findings and recommendations:
Identified as “Taxpayer A” with the name withheld, the property owner paid $939.50 in taxes — $718.29 county and $221.21 municipal — with a check in June 2021.
Then-tax collector Martin Hanczyc, who Griffith said is now deceased, properly marked the taxes as paid in the bound tax duplicate book and on the invoice.
However, Hanczyc credited the payment to a parcel owned by someone else, “Taxpayer B,” in the county’s computerized tax bill tracking program, even though this program would have issued a warning that Taxpayer B had already paid taxes owed on that property, requiring a system bypass.
As a result, Taxpayer A’s parcel was erroneously marked as delinquent and sent to tax claim for collection. Upon newspaper publication of the delinquency claim, Taxpayer A submitted paid receipts and cancelled checks but “was dismissed by all bodies and required to repay the taxes with penalties and interest,” it said.
When the Duryea tax collector’s year-end accounting showed overall receipts exceeded stated payments by $718.29, the county initiated a refund to the tax collector in that amount “without an adequate review of the records,” it said.
Based on the controller’s audit, a stop payment was issued for the refund check to the Duryea collector. Taxpayer A also received a refund for all overpayments in June.
Measures recommended by the audit include:
• Tax collectors — reconcile reports of unpaid properties before they are submitted to tax claim.
• Treasurer’s office — investigate all discrepancies before issuing refunds to tax collectors.
• Tax claim — notify the tax collector and treasurer’s office of all taxpayers with valid proof of payment and a claim that they were wrongly placed in delinquency so an investigation can occur.
Griffith reiterated his call for view-only access to tax collector bank accounts, saying his office had to waste resources tracking down information to identify the overpayment by Taxpayer A.
Cope was hired as internal auditor in the controller’s office in March at $16.41. Last month, Griffith hired Marilyn Derolf as deputy controller at $30.21 per hour. DeFluri holds the only unionized position in the office as auditor II.
Griffith said his only remaining vacancy is senior auditor, and he sent county council a notice that he intends to reduce expenses and expand the pool of applicants by changing that position to internal auditor.
Most of the applicants for senior auditor did not meet the minimum qualifications, but he said they would fulfill the requirements for internal auditor. He plans to advertise the internal auditor position soon.
“Being understaffed by one person, we can’t get the work done,” said Griffith, a prior councilman who took office as controller in January.
Tax collector audits completed this year to date are posted under the controller section at luzernecounty.org.