Bureaucratic blunder results in costly mistake to school district

The residents of Pasadena, California, voted themselves a parcel tax to aid their public schools, but bureaucratic blundering failed to put the increase on annual property tax bills.

In addition to the voter-approved measure, which will cost property owners an additional assessment of $288, failure by the school district to submit the proper paperwork to the Los Angeles County tax collector will cost the Pasadena School District $15,000 to correct the error and send out new bills. Finding fault with whomever made the error is next on the school board’s agenda, since the mistake of forgetting to submit the paperwork by the Aug. 31 deadline to have the parcel assessment appear on the bills was missed, and was not discovered until a month after the tax bill were sent out. Pasadena School Board President Elisabeth Eilers, said:

"We don't know exactly who to blame for the glitch. This happened at a time when we were going through a lot of changes at the district."

This is a triple whammy to the district’s budget. They have now had to hire a company for another $15,000 to send out the new tax bills. "We don't have a lot of manpower or experience with these things, so it was best to leave it to them," Eilers said. As it was, the ballot measure squeaked by on a slim margin of 'yes' votes, and without the error the charges to post the assessment and mails the bills would have only been $1,500, said Arlene Barrera, chief of the property tax division.