By Fox23.com News Staff
TULSA COUNTY, Okla. — The Tulsa County Assessor’s Office announced an unknown number of “Notice of Valuation Increase” notices contained a printer making them illegible and unusable.
According to the assessor’s office, a printing subcontractor accidentally printed the “Notices of Valuation Increase” on the wrong form, mailing them out to an unknown number of residential and commercial property owners.
The printing subcontractor said they don’t know which taxpayers have received these illegible forms or exactly how many.
“As soon as we were made aware of the issue by taxpayers, we investigated the source and extent of the issue,” said Tulsa County Assessor John Wright. “We then informed the public through a statement on our website, and began the process of immediate repair. We have identified that this office provided correct data and printing specifications. A printing error occurred during the vendor’s production process.”
By law, the Tulsa County Assessor’s Office must print and mail a paper form to any property owner whose valuation increased over the previous year.
Following the mailing date, property owners have 30 days to file a protest to the increased valuation.
According to the Tulsa County Assessor’s Office, they typically send about 200,000 notices per year, spread out across three mailing groups.
The office said the printing error occurred in their first mailing group of this year, which contained 91,898 notices.
Wright explained, “Upon contact from our office, the vendor conducted an investigation and determined that a box of forms had been mislabeled, resulting in an estimated few hundred incorrect printings, less than one percent. Unfortunately, the vendor cannot specifically identify which accounts received the wrong form. If we could identify those accounts, we would resend only that range; however, to ensure compliance with our statutory duty, and confidence in our accuracy, I have made the difficult decision that the entire group must be resent.”
About a week from Thursday, the new, corrected notices will be printed and mailed. Any Tulsa County property owners who receive a “Notice of Valuation Increase” dated 27 JAN should disregard it and wait for the corrected notice.
Once the corrected notices are sent, it will restart the 30 day protest period.
The Tulsa County Assessor’s Office said they’ll be establishing new protocols to keep a similar situation from occurring again.
“Going forward, in our commitment to accuracy, and transparency, this office will implement additional electronic and logistical safeguards in all future mailings to prevent a similar error. We hold a serious obligation to ensure all property owners receive a correct, legible, reproducible notice so they may confidently exercise their constitutional right to proper redress.”
