Princeton’s municipal tax office last week “inadvertently” duplicated tax payments for more than 160 residents who had paid their property taxes online, the town said Thursday.
By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
Princeton’s municipal tax office last week “inadvertently” duplicated tax payments for more than 160 residents who had paid their property taxes online, the town said Thursday.
The mistake, the first time something like this had happened in the eight years of online payments, required the town to work with its bank, The Bank of Princeton, to a correct a problem that was not resolved until this week. In all, it affected 163 people and involved roughly $794,000, the town said.
Kathryn Monzo, deputy town administrator and finance director, said in an email Thursday that the initial “fix” the bank had used to correct the double payment did not work.
”They immediately applied an appropriate correction, and all monies were restored,” Ms. Monzo said. “We confirmed everything with our bank Monday afternoon and continued to communicate with taxpayers affected through Wednesday.”
A Bank of Princeton spokeswoman could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The mistake was due to a town employee hitting a computer button twice on Nov. 13, Ms. Monzo said.
Mayor Liz Lempert said Tuesday that residents started calling the town to report the problem.
”We’re very sorry that it happened,” she said.
For her part, Councilwoman Jo S. Butler said Wednesday that the mistake “might” dissuade people from paying their taxes online.
”We have worked with the bank to ensure that a protection is put in place that this won’t happen again,” Ms. Monzo said. “We have been taking online payments for eight years and this has never happened before.”
Details about the snafu were hard to come by for most of the week, with even some council members having little to no information. Councilman Lance Liverman, for example, said Wednesday he knew “nothing” about the matter and only found out when a reporter asked him about it.
No one in the municipal finance office or the tax collector’s office returned phone calls from the Princeton Packet seeking comment this week.
Ms. Monzo and other top town officials were away for part of this week for the League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City.
In her email Thursday, Ms. Monzo indicated she was having e-mail problems from Atlantic City, although the Packet also tried to contact her by her cell phone different times.