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Title: Tax System Glitch Smaller This Time

Source: Roanoke Times & World News Publication date: 2000-06-07

For the third time this year, Montgomery County has extended a tax deadline because of continuing computer software problems.

This time, only public service corporations such as Bell Atlantic and American Electric Power are being affected.

Bugs in the county's new Y2K-compliant software have forced the county to postpone the real-estate tax deadline for public service corporations from Monday to June 26.

The county is a test site for a new municipal computer tax collection and management program by MUNIS Inc.

Those 36 real-estate tax bills - out of 31,034 the county issued this year - will bring in $481,856, said Robert Parker, county public information director. In all, the county will collect $10.3 million in this, the first installment of real-estate taxes this year, Parker said.

"It's another case of fine-tuning the program that we converted to earlier this year," Parker said. "These are the types of things that come up. We can't always anticipate them ahead of time."

This is the third time that a deadline has been extended because of difficulties in printing tax bills. The county has not sought any financial payback for time lost, though it has cost the county money for overtime pay.

The county had to postpone the Dec. 5 real-estate tax collection by more than a month because of problems switching over to the computer programs.

The county was also two months behind in issuing personal property tax returns this year because of computer glitches.

As a result, taxpayers had an extra month to fill those out and return them to the county for tax purposes.

County supervisors said that bugs are expected with a brand-new computer system, and that the problems are being corrected as they come up.

"We're aware that when you put in a new information management system, there are going to be bugs to work out," said Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Mary Biggs.

"Everything should be going smoothly in the next couple of months or so, and by the next deadline we should be fine," said Board Vice Chairman Nick Rush. "I don't foresee any other problems."

Sarah Cagle can be reached at 381-1669 or sarahc@roanoke.com

http://realcities.yellowbrix.com/pages/realcities/Story.nsp?story_id=11121034&site=charlotte&ID=realcities&scategory=Computers%3AY2K

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-- (Dee360Degree@aol.com), June 09, 2000