County tax collector big-footed in military property tithe bid

BY TERRY SCHMIDA

Can anybody bank on defeating the U.S. military in court?

That appears to be what the Monroe County Tax Collector’s Office tried to do, by auctioning off about $2 million in property tax debt and expenses it hoped to claim as its own, as an appeal over its jurisdiction wended its way through the courts. Either that, or Tax Collector Danise Henriquez and her office tried to salvage what they could from a legal situation out of their control.

Either way, the state has intervened to quash the process, leaving Monroe County taxpayers to fill in the holes left by a controversial private-public partnership now nearly a decade old.

The properties in question are located at Sigsbee Park, Trumbo Point, the Veterans Affairs Hospital on South Roosevelt Boulevard, and the Truman Annex, and have been managed by a partnership between the Navy and the private firm Balfour Beatty called Southeast Housing LLC, since 2007. Last year a judge ruled that the partnership was beyond local tax jurisdiction, giving everyone living or working on the parcels a free ride on public infrastructure. However, even as it appealed that ruling, the Tax Collector’s Office sold off tax certificates, (essentially potentially recoverable tax debt) to two private companies, WGS Tax Investment Funding LLC, and PTL Partners LLC, who were the lowest bidders.

Now the state Attorney General’s Office has demanding that Henriquez rescind the issuance of the certificates.

In a letter Assistant Attorney General William Stafford takes Henriquez to task for allowing the sale of the certificates after signing an agreement with Southeast Housing relinquishing the right to “pursue collection of any taxes, including the offering or sale of tax certificates.

“There was no dispute as to the timeliness of the challenge to the 2013 taxes, so the tax collector was prohibited by statute from proceeding with a tax certificate sales,” he wrote. “The sale of the tax certificates was thus a violation of the final judgment. The fact that the property appraiser appealed the final judgment on April 2, 2014, had no effect on the prohibition against tax collection efforts. At a minimum, the tax collector was prohibited from taking unilateral action to collect taxes during the pendency of the litigation.”

Henriquez has defended herself by pointing out that while the suit was underway, Southeast Housing made a partial tax payment, which was then divided among agencies the tax collector funds, such as the school district. The cash was placed in those agencies’ escrow accounts, so as not to affect their budgets, should refunds be in the offing. Neither of the two companies which purchased the certificates have moved to seek reimbursement yet.