Government Costs- Lack Of Accountability (A Harsha Sankar Article)
Dear Citizen, May 2003
In the Virginian Review's (Covington, Virginia) April 16th article "Supreme Court Denies Stull's Appeal" which involved the controversy over the amount of refunds owed Clifton Forge citizens, there were a couple items which should have grabbed attention with one causing alarm.
It is a very simple deduction Clifton Forge citizens owe Alleghany County for six months of property taxes for 2001 due to the plain fact Clifton Forge, with its new town status, was part of the county for half of that year. Was it really necessary for scarce and valuable taxpayers' resources to go to the bottomless pit of wasteful litigation? Common sense again had failed to be applied.
The other item which should have stirred extreme concern was the $35,423.00 cost in processing the refund. On the surface,this is an utterly ridiculous and totally exorbitant charge. People who live in this area are not dumb nor blind. With staff and computer hardware already in place, retooling the software should not have been much more expensive than the purchase of any accounting application program from a retail outlet. In the worst case scenario, three or four extra people could have been hired and in ten days' time, half of all property taxes collected
could have been manually issued as refunds to the approximately one thousand property owners for a tenth that figure.
The bill for $35423.00 was attributed to computer programming costs and consulting fees. All area and even state taxpayers should demand an itemized bill with all explanations provided upon request. This certainly warrants review and investigation for its legitimacy.
Very Truly Yours,
Harsha Sankar
908 Valley Ridge Road
Covington,Virginia 24426
In the Virginian Review's (Covington, Virginia) April 16th article "Supreme Court Denies Stull's Appeal" which involved the controversy over the amount of refunds owed Clifton Forge citizens, there were a couple items which should have grabbed attention with one causing alarm.
It is a very simple deduction Clifton Forge citizens owe Alleghany County for six months of property taxes for 2001 due to the plain fact Clifton Forge, with its new town status, was part of the county for half of that year. Was it really necessary for scarce and valuable taxpayers' resources to go to the bottomless pit of wasteful litigation? Common sense again had failed to be applied.
The other item which should have stirred extreme concern was the $35,423.00 cost in processing the refund. On the surface,this is an utterly ridiculous and totally exorbitant charge. People who live in this area are not dumb nor blind. With staff and computer hardware already in place, retooling the software should not have been much more expensive than the purchase of any accounting application program from a retail outlet. In the worst case scenario, three or four extra people could have been hired and in ten days' time, half of all property taxes collected
could have been manually issued as refunds to the approximately one thousand property owners for a tenth that figure.
The bill for $35423.00 was attributed to computer programming costs and consulting fees. All area and even state taxpayers should demand an itemized bill with all explanations provided upon request. This certainly warrants review and investigation for its legitimacy.
Very Truly Yours,
Harsha Sankar
908 Valley Ridge Road
Covington,Virginia 24426
posted by Harsha Sankar at 1:56 AM
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