Massachusetts towns get tough on tax delinquents

Unpaid property taxes are a major problem for the community, said selectmen chairman Bob Powilaitis. The local tax collection office said the amount of property taxes that is owed and could be collected is about $4 million, including interest.

‘‘That’s extraordinarily high,’’ Powilaitis said. If the community . . . hopes to get its financial house in order, it must do a much better job, he said. The town has laid off or cut the hours of about seven employees, he said, so anything that generates more revenue or cuts expenses helps, he said.

Bob Haley, the new tax collector, said taxpayers will soon be able to pay bills through Randolph Savings Bank, and probably other banks, too. Hopefully, he said, making it easier to pay will encourage some to catch up on unpaid bills.

About 30 homeowners owe a total of more than $1 million in property taxes. ‘‘Several owe close to $100,000’’ each, he said.

Those aren’t the only upaid bills. About 25 percent of homeowners have not paid their trash collection fees of $120 a year, he said. ‘‘You have to get people to start paying.’’

In Milton, the names of five property owners who owed a total of about $650,000 were published in local newspapers after problems with collections surfaced at a Town Meeting, said James D. McAuliffe, the local treasurer/tax collector.

One homeowner, who lives on Meetinghouse Lane, owes about $260,000, including interest, that has accumulated since 1992. The homeowner at one point reached agreement with the former collector to pay $600 a month, but made only one payment, said McAuliffe, who was elected earlier this year.

The homeowner planned to meet with McAuliffe this week.

The other four homeowners on the list — who owed between $60,000 and $190,000, — have been in to pay or talk about payment plans. Some have hard-luck stories, said McAuliffe, as the recession has wreaked havoc with jobs and lives.

Those who don’t pay are unusual. Out of 8,300 homeowners in Milton, only 28 didn’t pay their bills, and about half of those have since caught up, he said.

People do eventually pay up. In recent weeks, the family of a man in a nursing home paid off a $126,000 bill, and an elderly man ‘‘down on his luck’’ paid off an $82,000 bill, said McAuliffe.
Randolph took an aggressive approach toward collecting bills for water and sewer services a year ago. The bills, collected by the Public Works Department, amount to roughly $1,200 annually and are collected twice a year.

Bill collections had lagged in previous years, with the town collecting about 80 percent of them or so. Unpaid bills were added to property tax bills, plus 12 percent interest.

But water and sewer was turned into an ‘‘enterprise’’ account, meaning that what was collected had to support the department. And the department realized halfway through fiscal year 2009 that it was running out of money.

So after sending out reminders, the department started turning off water if bills went unpaid for 90 days. It was a new, tougher strategy; the department had not turned off the spigot before, and it got people’s attention, said Superintendent David A. Zecchini. Collections climbed into the 90 percent range the past year, he said.

‘‘We understand the economy out there,’’ he said. ‘‘But we have to pay our vendors, too.’’ Even if people can’t pay the entire bill, they should try to make some payments, he said.

In Walpole, too, there were positive signs.

‘‘From a tax collection point of view, our collections were up’’ for fiscal 2009, which ended in June, said Mark Good, the town’s finance director. Outstanding bills totaled $685,000 in 2008, but $513,000 in 2009.

‘‘I’m not sure why,’’ he said. ‘‘Maybe things are looking a little better.’’

Matt Carroll can be reached at mcarroll@globe.com.