 Welcome to Sheboygan County Government, working for you. My name's Adam Payne, I'm the Sheboygan County Administrative Coordinator. And with me today, the other co-host is Bill Gehring, the new County Board Chairman who, as many of you know, replaced Dan Lemieux, who is now a state assembly person. Our guest today, also in a new leadership role, is Laura Henning Lorenz, the new County Treasurer. And today we're going to get a feel for the roles and responsibilities of that department and certainly get to know Laura better. And Laura, why don't we start off by you giving us a little background about yourself and your roles and responsibilities as County Treasurer? Certainly. Thanks for having me today. This will be enjoyable. First of all, a little bit about myself. I used to work for Sheboygan County from 1990 until about year 2000, so I have nearly 10 years under my belt. And I've now come back to the new County Treasurer, and I've been in that position since January 6th. So some of the responsibilities I have are taking care of the county's investments and taking care of the banking processes and just overseeing things in the department as a whole. And what's the mission of the Treasurer's Office and some of the key functions and responsibilities? Well, our mission is to provide friendly, efficient, and professional services to our customers. And some of the key functions that we perform would be collection of taxes would be the main function. And of course, we also take care of receding all of the payments that come into the county. Now you started, what was your first day of work? January 6th. January 6th. So you haven't been there real long yet, but I know you've got some good staff working with you. How many staff are in the department? Well, there are three full-time staff. Betty has been with the department for 31 years. Margaret has been with the county for 16 years, and Jack has been with the county for eight and a half and actually in the Treasurer's Office for five years. So I have people who are very knowledgeable with the functions of the department. A lot of experience around you. So as you've had a chance to get a feel for your role and responsibilities and look over the landscape a little bit, I know collection certainly has been one of the key priorities right now. Yes. But you mentioned the staff that you have working with you. What are some of their other routine or responsibilities that they fulfill in the office? Well, right now, like I mentioned, we are in the final mode of our tax collection. That will end on January 31st. Then we transition over into the mode of doing settlements. So we work with 28 municipalities and one by one we settle with them. And then by March we go into another type of settlement mode where we actually settle with the state of Wisconsin. And that should hopefully conclude our tax season for the time being until we gear back up in June and July. I saw you this morning. I think there was a sheriff's sale going on. Do you have some responsibilities there as well? Yes, I do. Normally we have sheriff's sales on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And my responsibility is to be present during the sale and represent the Treasurer's Department, stating any delinquent and current taxes that are due. Can't answer any general questions that are pertinent to my office. Now I see today that you brought along a copy of our new county Atlas. I did. This is something that the Information Systems Department, and I know your department and others were involved with developing this past year. And from everything I've heard it's just a real nice document. Yes, this is a beautiful, beautiful Atlas. The county is very proud of this Atlas because it was produced in the county of Sheboygan between the IS department. Robert Lee, I know, was heading up the project, planning, real property, the city of Sheboygan teamed up, and we had a local printer work with this Atlas, and it's a wonderful, wonderful Atlas. There are some additional pieces that we've never had before. If you're a sports person, we have all of the lakes listed, as well as there's rural listings in here, rural and city listings of all the homes of addresses. And the book is selling in our office for $20. If you prefer to have one mail, just give our office a call, and we will let you know how you need to do that. This book is also available at UW Extension, the egg building in Sheboygan Falls. So that's another place where you can get a hold of this Atlas. So you can stop in and pick one up for $20 each, or send in a check for $22. And you'll mail it out to folks. Yes. Very good. Yes. Laura, as you mentioned, one of the chief responsibilities of your office is collecting taxes. This is your first year. How is it going? Well, it's very busy, Bill. It's very busy. The days fly by so quickly. Sometimes I forget that it's already five o'clock, and I feel like I just walked into the office, which is good. But it wouldn't go so smooth if I didn't have the people with the amount of knowledge. We also have some ladies in the office that are in as temporary staff that are helping out through the season, and they're excellent. They work very hard, and they've been keeping up with all the payments that are coming in daily. I'm sure you get a lot of calls regarding the tax bills. Yes. Who actually prepares them, and when are they sent out? Well, there's a culmination of processes that take place before the tax bills go out. But the tax bills, essentially, are printed in our internal IS department, and then the municipalities where Sheboygan County Treasurer collects, which are eight, we send those bills out, and then the other municipalities send out their own bills. Sometimes they may send attachments or whatnot, but they are then responsible for theirs. Are there differences in the tax bill from one community to the other? The format of the tax bill is the same. However, there are some differences, depending upon what township or city or village you live in. Of course, your rates and your assessed ratios and things like that will be different. Some areas, and I'll point this out in just a few minutes, but some areas have special assessments, and it just depends upon what's going on in your community. We'll play a factor in what's on your tax bill. You probably get a lot of calls to the office regarding the tax bill. What would be the most frequent calls that you get? Yes. Our phones are ringing off the hook, and we're trying to keep up with that as best we can. The question we have constantly would be, did you receive my tax payment, or did you receive the tax payment from my mortgage company? We're very easily able to access that information with our new software that we have, our tax software, and we can give an answer to the customer efficiently. Why don't we take a look at a natural tax bill and possibly could walk us through the various items on it? Certainly. This particular tax bill is a tax bill from the city of Sheboygan, and as you notice up on top, we have your basic header area, and it does list the tax bill for 2002, which is due in 2003. On this side of the tax bill right here, we have a parcel number, and that's an important number to us because that tells us that's the number that we use in our computer system to look that up. We have the name of the property owner, and we have a bill number, which is the same as your invoice number. And over in this area right in here, we have assessed value, and those values are determined by your assessor in your municipality, so in this case this would be the city assessor. The first dollar amount represents what your land is worth, the second dollar amount represents what improvements are worth, and the improvements would be any buildings that you have on your parcel. And then it's totaled up here at the end. This middle number right here is a ratio, and that is determined by the state of Wisconsin. If this ratio were 100%, that would represent your fair market value, which is also now broken down on your tax bill as the land, the improvements or buildings, and then a total. There's a lot of information on the tax bill. There's an awful lot of information. The next area of the tax bill has the taxing jurisdictions, and what that is, is that that lists all of the jurisdictions in your municipality that would possibly be taxing you. So for instance, in the city, there's a piece of your tax that goes to the state, a piece that goes to the county, a piece that stays in the city. This particular tax bill has a school district. The TCDB represents your technical college, and ours is LTC. And then finally we have a piece for the rec department. We have some very nice columns here that represent past and current comparisons. So you can compare what happened last year versus this year. These two columns right here would represent the state aides that were for this particular taxing district. So these are aides that each area gives to these particular districts. The total. The total. So for example, anybody in the city of Sheboygan will receive these same totals in these areas on their tax bill. Now these totals will be different versus town of Sheboygan, villages, et cetera. Then we go on to the part where many people are interested in knowing what their taxes are. So these are all itemized by your taxing jurisdiction, and they give you the previous year and the current year, and then the percentage of change. So then you know whether the percentage went up or down depending upon where you're at. These amounts are totaled on the bottom. So we have a total tax from last year, a total tax for 2002, and then the percentage of change was 2% increase. This particular tax bill does not have a lottery credit, but if there were a lottery credit right here in this blank area, you would see the lottery credit. There could be several reasons why this particular piece of property does not have a lottery credit. One could be that the owner did not occupy the residence since January 1st of 2002. Another reason could be that it's a newly constructed residence, and again they still didn't have occupancy. Or another reason is this may not be the permanent residency of the owner of the property. Okay. And then we have totals here of the tax. And then the total total of the increase or decrease of your tax. Over here, this number represents the amount of money that your school tax is reduced by the school tax levy. That amount of money is already calculated into your school tax. It's there for information. And then on this side of the tax bill, you have the rate per thousand. So this is the amount that you pay per thousand dollars. Okay. Your net tax right here is now taken up here. And this area of the bill right here is the area that we use for special assessments or delinquent utilities. In this case, this particular tax bill has delinquent water and delinquent sewer. And then those are all added up to give you a total that you would pay to whichever municipality you need to pay to by January 31st. If you prefer, there is an installment option where you may pay the amount down here by January 31st. And then there's another amount due by July 31st. And it's just good to mention. For example, on this particular tax bill, we did receive $1,000 for the first installment. If we did not receive the entire amount listed on the tax bill, then as of February 1st, the entire unpaid tax is considered delinquent and subject to interest and penalty. Okay. I'll just keep moving on down. This particular piece of the tax bill has some information in it. That's very important. This again is the address where the parcel of property is located, followed by a volume and page number. I know it's quite small, but if you're interested in knowing more about your deed, it gives the volume and page number in the register of deeds, and you can go and look up your deed. And then it's followed by a description of your property. Now, sometimes the descriptions are so lengthy they can't fit on the tax bill. And then there'll be a statement saying that you need to contact us. And we have the full description, and we'd be more than happy to help people out if they needed to know that. This area right here represents the name and address of where we actually send the tax bill. And we have some information about the office. We have our normal office hours. We have important dates where we will be closed or have shortened hours. And over here we have our telephone number. If you need to call us, if you have a question about something on your tax bill, by all means call us. And we have Dropbox information. We have a tan-colored Dropbox right in the front of the administration building at 508 New York Avenue. We also have another Dropbox inside the administration building next to the Treasurer's Office. So I always encourage people to either pay through the mail or drop off their payment. In the Dropbox, it's very easy. You just drive down New York Avenue. You drive right up to the Dropbox and drop off your payment. It's very simple. Or just drop it off. Instead of standing in line, drop it off in the Dropbox inside the building. It makes it very quick and very easy to pay your taxes that way. And below we have a statement. If you have a refund coming, we only will give you cash if it's below $1. If it's above $1, we will cut a check through the county and we will mail it out to you within 15 business days. The bottom part is what comes back to us if you would mail or put your money in the Dropbox. But you'll notice that we have a barcode here. The new tax software that we're using right now, we just scan the barcode. Your property comes up on the computer screen and we process your payment. It's very easy and very quick now. And then there's just some duplicate information below. Just for us to double check when we bring up your tax information, we have a bill number which would again be the same as an invoice. Your parcel number, your name and address, and of course, we also call this the CITIS or it's the address of the actual parcel. And again, it reiterates your payment if you want to go in installments or pay it in full. And how you should make out your check. Your checks for your tax payments should always be made payable to Sheboygan County Treasurer. I don't want any checks coming with my name on. If you have any problems, again, you just call us. One thing I want to reiterate, if the taxes are not paid in full, then of course they are delinquent as of February 1st. And that would be if you didn't pay your first installment in full. Very good. And clearly a lot of information and numbers for our viewers to absorb there. It is. I think to summarize, I mean the tax bill shows your property value if you have your improvements and improvements and those of that value. And the assessment that you spoke of, I've seen on tax bills that ranging from 80% to 85 to 91, that really is contingent upon the local municipality, isn't it, that land being assessed? Yes. What's the process for that very briefly? Again, Adam is talking about this dollar amount right here, or this ratio right here, I'm sorry. And for instance, in the city of Sheboygan, they're assessed at 91.366%. So this tells me basically that the city may have been assessed not too many years ago would have gone through an assessment. I don't have the exact year, but when it gets below statutorily when it gets to a certain ratio, then your municipality has to be reassessed and you go through a reassessment. And then that brings it back up to somewhere around 100%, which is always good to have. And being the gatekeeper for pulling all this information together for all these different municipalities, I imagine from time to time that can be something that you may be waiting for. In fact, we've read in the paper this year that there may be a community or two that is still working and getting assessments done. Is that the case? Yes. That can happen. And hopefully we don't want to have that happen. We try to avoid it at all costs. But there are ways of working around it and the municipalities handle this very well. They will guide you. If we are the ones collecting the taxes, we will guide you as to what to do. If you do not get a tax bill in a timely manner and if it is one of the municipalities, they will work with you and inform you as to what to do so that you're able to deduct your taxes in the year that you actually need to do it. I know you mentioned there's a lot of cooperation from departments. Information systems has a role. Real property has a role. Clearly you have a role. Yes. Listen to you describe the tax bill and all the municipalities, the school districts, the state and other special assessments. Really the county treasurer is pulling that all together on the benefit of the constituents here and then they may not like to see it come in the mail but sending that tax bill out, taking payment and then from there that payment is then distributed to the appropriate municipalities, is it not? Yes. Yes. And that's what we do during settlement. Once we finish our tax season on January 31st then we start going into the transition mode and gearing up towards settlement. So then we meet with or somehow have conversation with 28 different municipalities and we settle with them one by one and when that is finished and that has a deadline of February 20th and when that is finished then we move on to settling with the state and then we take care of that by March. You commented earlier that if the refund is more than a dollar that we'll send a check out within a couple of weeks and just so our viewers aren't clear you're not talking about the refunds that they might expect at the state or federal level this would be a refund if there's overpayment when they come to your office? Yes, that's correct Adam. Let's say for instance the mortgage company would send us an amount above and beyond your tax payment we know that and then we will issue a check to the homeowner within 15 business days and get that out to them. Hopefully our turnaround time is a little quicker than that but 15 business days would be the longest it would take. Two other key points and then we'll move on when you talked about the different municipalities and the tax rate that can vary in terms of how much the increase is depending on whether you've had a recent reassessment or whether or not you've got a property value increase because you've put on a new building or a new addition on your home. Correct. A lot of variables in that. Yes. And the last comment you emphasized folks should use that drop-off box and I know from time to time especially early in the year the tax year we'll see a lot of folks standing in line waiting I think for the most part the Treasurer's Office has done a great job moving people quickly through as you said but sometimes it just surprises me that people will choose to stand in line and wait when they can simply drop that off and get reseat sent to them. You said there were two locations they can put this. Yes, yes there are. Again the drop-off box that's outside the administration building at 508 New York Avenue. It's a tan colored drop-off box looks similar to a mailbox and it can be just dropped off. It's as easy as pulling up your car right to the drop-off box putting the payment in the slot and driving on your way. The other one of course like I said is in the building and it's located right next to the Treasurer's door and it says tax payments and you just drop it off in there also. If people should want to reseat and they just drop it off in the mailbox how would they handle that? Normally people send self-addressed stamped envelopes. This year how it has been handled is that if we have a self-addressed stamped envelope we print a receipt internally right off the machine, the receding machine and send it back in the mail the same day. However if they need a receipt and they did not send along a self-addressed stamped envelope then one receipt is being generated once a week from our IS department and usually we run those receipts. Actually Dave Dittmer in the IS department runs that once a week on Fridays. So as you've had a chance now to get a feel for things in the office and the operations, I anticipate you may have thoughts on how we can make some improvements both short and long-term goals. Do you want to share a few of those with us? Sure. Right now the short-term goals the things that we're doing right now are the archiving old records right now. We're streamlining some banking processes. We're doing some banking processes quite manually and we're working on going online and doing more transfers and whatnot. Looking up things, bank statements and that online which is quite exciting and will help the accounting process go much quicker. Some of the other things we're doing would be just to get through the tax season with no bumps and I think that's going very well. But again, I have to commend the people working in the office, the ladies that are here temporarily and of course all the staff that are in the office right now. I know you mentioned earlier the county website is something that you'd like to expand upon. Yes, yes. There is a county website and the Treasurer has an area in the website as when I came on board Robert Lee and Dave Ditmer were working with our software, our tax software company getting tax roll information on to the internet and hopefully before the fall of the year we should have that all implemented and online. We'll have public access and then since we do such a large amount of have such a large amount of information for attorneys, title companies, banks we'll have subscribers also. So if people want to get more information about your department or specifically their tax bill, what do they call? They would call 459-3015 and anybody in the office would be more than happy to help them out. Very good. Well it sure has been a pleasure to have you on our guest today, Laura. It's good to have Chairman Bill Gehring here today as well. We'll continue to co-host this program and bring to you some of the services and programs that Sheboygan County has to offer. And next month it's our intent to invite Sheriff Mike Heltke to be our guest to talk a little bit about some of the changes that he would like to see in the law enforcement center and get to know more about the roles and responsibility of the Sheriff's Department. So until then, thank you for joining us today.