Some 20% of the town’s taxpayers will soon be receiving revised versions of their property tax bills after an error by a town vendor led to the mailing of hundreds of tax bills that contained incorrect information.
Town officials say more than 2,000 taxpayers received bills for other taxpayers’ properties. The erroneous bills were sent to a particular address but the property information and the amount of tax due was for a different address.
The town posted a statement on its website advising those who received incorrect bills to disregard them and wait for the replacement bills.
The mixup was attributed to a “mail merge” error that apparently occurred in the production and mailing of 10,898 quarterly tax bills executed by Kirkwood Direct, a Wilmington direct mail firm contracted by the town to process bills for both residential and commercial properties.
Deputy Town Manager Dave Davison said he believes the town was made aware of the error in sufficient time to take steps to mitigate against any potential financial loss.
“We became aware of the problem Monday (Jan. 5) when some residents came in (to Town Hall) and showed that their information was incorrect,” said Davison. “We promptly contacted the company (Kirkwood),” said Davison. “The company did research and did confirm that the problem was with one of their interim steps.”
Davison explained that the town sent Kirkwood the town’s data files with the information needed to format the bills for printing and mailing. He said the town proofed about 20 sample bills it had been sent prior to the actual mailing and all were correctly formatted.
The error apparently occurred when Kirkwood edited the ZIP code field on the bill, converting the standard five-digit ZIP code to the “ZIP plus four” code in order to save postage.
“That’s one of the services that they provide for us as a third-party printing house,” said Davison. Somehow, that step of editing the town’s files to adjust the ZIP codes disrupted the information flow from other data fields.
“They were able to determine where the problem was and identify the exact accounts that had the problem,” Davison said.
“That’s why we know it’s about 20% of the total and they have reprinted them. They gave us some samples today (Tuesday) to look at and the name of the person and their mailing address match their property address.”
“They should be going out tomorrow (Wednesday),” Davison said, and Kirkwood will cover any costs. Davison said taxpayers who have their tax bills handled by their mortgage company should not be affected by the problem. He said the town provides files for those bills directly to the mortgage companies.
The town expected an issue … just not this one
This property tax billing cycle is for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 and the bills reflect the new valuations for almost all of the town’s properties approved Dec. 17.
When the Board of Assessors scheduled its Jan. 6 morning meeting, it cleared its agenda, expecting that the bills would have already been mailed and some residents would show up seeking explanations for why their bills had risen so dramatically, in some cases upwards of 30%.
As it happened, the bills had yet to reach most households and the 9 a.m. meeting did not attract a single resident. Hours later, residents began to contact the town about the increased bills and, in some cases, about the billing snafu.
“That was not on our radar screen,” said Davison of the snafu-related calls.
The changes in tax bills resulted from valuation changes that met a state Department of Revenue requirement for municipalities to recertify their valuations every five years to ensure that they reflect market value.
Because recent valuations had not kept up with the dramatic increase in land values Needham has experienced in recent years, the average valuation increased by 22.3%. This added $2.5 billion in overall value to Needham’s residential properties, bringing the net worth of Needham’s residential property to more than $14 billion.
This did not mean that Needham could increase its real estate tax collections by 22%. The strictures of Prop. 2-½ limited the average tax increase to 3.6%. But because the increased valuations were driven predominantly by the increased value of the “land” portion of residential tax bills and not the “building” portion, houses of modest size experienced more dramatic increases in their valuations and subsequently a greater increase in their tax bills.
The assessors had been prepared to explain the valuation process and inform residents of avenues they could pursue — such as filing for an abatement — if they felt their valuations were somehow incorrect.
“I had wanted to make sure that people understand that, really, the only way that they can get anything done on their tax bill is to file an abatement and go through the Board of Assessors,” said board member Michael Diener.
“Arguing with the Assessing Department or the treasurer or the Finance Department, or calling the town manager’s office is not going to accomplish what they want to accomplish.”
Nancy Martin, the town’s assistant director of assessing, encouraged residents to call the Assessing Department or come to Town Hall with their questions. “We’d certainly rather see them than not see them if they’re interested in filing, absolutely, so we can talk about it up front and give our professional opinion.”
“I will say the office staff is well versed in asking for as much information that the taxpayer can provide. A one-sentence reason, we let them know, is really not helping them with their case. So we are asking for additional information and as many pages of attachments as they’d like to include.”
The tax payments are due by Feb. 3 but abatements must be filed within one month of receipt of the bill.
The Board of Assessors’ next meeting has been scheduled for Jan. 27 at 9 a.m. Unlike on Jan. 6, they may have some guests.
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