Tax Advisory Committee Minutes Thursday, September 21, 2017 MnCCC, St. Paul, MN

Transcription

1 Attending: Matt Armstrong, Conduent Rosa Harris, Brown County Pat Martinson, Freeborn County Marilee Peterson, Sibley County Michael Sheplee, Martin County Troy Stewart, Pine County Tammi Vaith, Wright County Tax Advisory Committee Minutes Thursday, September 21, 2017 MnCCC, St. Paul, MN Farley Grunig, Farley R. Grunig Consulting Connie Kurtzweg, McLeod County Karen McClellan, Kanabec County Jean Prochniak, Brown County Wayne Stein, Otter Tail County John L. Thompson, Faribault County Kris Whittlef, Conduent Phone: Tina Von Eschen, Kanabec County Ken Olson, Pennington County Carrie Ann Seltzer, Conduent Randy Spillman, Conduent Kyle Jerviss, Wabasha County Richard Ramberg, Conduent Bill Sparks, Minnesota Revenue Call to Order Tammi Vaith, Tax Advisory Committee Chair, called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. with the individuals as stated above participating either in person or through the conference call. Approval of Agenda Marilee Peterson made a motion, seconded by Karen McClellan and unanimously carried, to approve the September 21, 2017 agenda as presented. Approval of Minutes Karen McClellan made a motion, seconded by Troy Stewart and unanimously carried, to approve the August 17, 2017 minutes as presented. State Update Bill Sparks, Minnesota Department of Revenue reported on the following: The recently release Fractional/Linked Homesteads and Agricultural Homestead Credit Bulletin (Dated 09/06/2017). o Bill noted that as counties review this document they are encouraged to forward questions to the Department of Revenue. There is a delay in the issuance of property tax refunds because the department is taking the time necessary to review and verify the information on all tax returns to prevent refunds from going to the wrong individual because of identity theft. The script the department s call center is using was share previously in an . Currently working on determining the State General Tax Levy and the Pay 2018 preliminary rates for C/I and Seasonal properties. o o The new $100,000 market value exclusion for commercial property was noted. PRISM submissions are being reviewed to make sure this change has been incorporated into the information being submitted. Updated the committee on recent staffing changes. The Pay 2018 proposed levy survey will be coming out this week and is due back to the Department of Revenue by October 8, Thanked everyone for their timely efforts on PRISM Submission 2. Requested suggested topic for guidance that the Department of Revenue could provide as webinars.

2 Committee Reports: LRC Report Karen McClellan noted the following: The Pay 2018 Proposed Tax Calc Design has been approved. Waiting for the programming to be released for beta testing. There are changes to the valuation and tax statements which will require review and design approval. EIC Report Marilee Peterson reported that the Enhancements and Issues Committee will be meeting at 1:00 p.m. today to discuss the outstanding issues. She is expecting someone from Conduent to join the committee meeting. Matt Armstrong indicate that he would be in attendance. There was also a brief discussion regarding the homestead sent and returned date. It was stated that these fields need to be record specific and not parcel specific. Data Standards Committee The Data Standards Committee has not met; therefore, there is no report for today s meeting. Training Committee Karri Thorsten s position as chair of the Training Committee needs to be filled. Marilee Peterson has indicated interest in assuming this role; however, per position as chair of the Enhancements and Issues Committee would then need to be filled. Additional discussion will take place at today s Enhancements and Issues Committee meeting. It was also noted that no specific date has been set for the tax forfeiture training/workshop. Currently dates in October or a date after truth-in-taxation are being considered. The training site will be the Conduent office in St. Cloud as the remodeling plans will not impact the ability to use the training room. Beta Test Committee Tammi Vaith reported that Denise Anderson was not able to attend today s committee meeting; however, Denise had submitted the following written report: BETA Testers completed the testing of tax capacity for 2018 proposed tax and programming was released to members. BETA Testers for tax rates, tax calc and TNT notices for 2018 are waiting for the programming from Conduent. TAC gave Conduent the deadline of 09/18/17 to have the programming ready to test. The Committee received an from Kris at Conduent on 09/18/17 stating the programming is not ready and she will let us know when it is. Committee will follow up Monday, September 25 with Conduent. Lisa Meredith and Denise Anderson contacted Conduent to make sure someone is keeping the spreadsheet that is needed to pay counties at the end of the year for BETA testing. Kris from Conduent, stated she has the spreadsheet and it is updated. Committee will contact Conduent middle of November for the spreadsheet for payout. The Committee will call a meeting for pay out end of November or early December. Right now, the plan is for a conference call unless there is more added to our agenda.

3 Conduent LRMS Project Status Report Farley Grunig reported on the following: Noted that MnCCC involvement with the project is slower at the present time. The Tax/CAMA Steering Committee has decided to reduce the numbers of meetings from every other week to once a month. The Tax/CAMA Steering Committee will be meeting the second Tuesday of each month. The prepayment documentation has been going back and forth to resolve issues. Conduent is working on cleaning up issues from Iterations one through four. Name and addresses documentation has been provided to the SMEs. Remote testing capability with adequate support will be in place before testing begins. Demo No. 13 is being scheduled. A WebEx has been scheduled for Monday, October 2, 2017 to review the inquiry functionality. It is anticipated that more documentation will be coming out soon for review. The name documents that were discussed at the September 18, 2017 WebEx along with a link to the recording has been provided. It is anticipated that more resources are coming back to our project; however, Conduent has six openings. There has been some activity on the conversion process. Conduent System Status Report Randy Spillman and Carrie Ann Seltzer reported that the Pay 2018 Proposed Tax Calc programming is ready for alpha testing by Conduent (Kris and/or Heidi). Once the alpha testing is complete a day will be selected for the Counties to complete the Beta testing process. Kris Whittlef reported on the following: All Conduent counties has completed the PRISM 4 submission. There are three Conduent counties that are in the process of completing the PRISM 2 submission. Reviewed the following issues o Issue Tax Capacity Calculation-Catch All this will address the new property classes created by the 2017 legislative session. o Issue 2578 Pay 2018 Submission 3 this will address the new credits for school bonding. o Issue 2580 PRISM Submission 2 Update to Valuation addressed the issue when an exempt parcel exists in a TIF District but not in the valuation tree. This issue was included in General Release MNTQ0829 o Issue 2581 PRISM Submission 2 Update to TIF this fixed a bug. Additional information regarding the newly open issues and the completed issues for the period of August 12 through September 15 is available in a document from Conduent Tax Support dated September 15, Kris noted that she might not be attending the Tax Advisory Committee meeting in the future and that she will be most likely be replaced by a manager. Liaison Reports: CAMA - Troy Stewart reported that CAMA last meeting was in August. There is currently not much going on. It was noted that Scott County had an issue with ecrv; however, it appears that it is an issue unique to them as it has not been reported by any other county. The next meeting is scheduled for November 15 th.

4 Financials ISSG Kyle Jerviss indicated that there was no report for this month s meeting. MnCCC Board Ken Olson reported on the following: The budget has been reviewed and was found to be acceptable. The top five priorities were discussed (bylaws and how to market MnCCC to others). Contracts are being reviewing and currently working on a contract with ES&S for elections. MnCCC has been converted to Office 365. The tax court user group consists of a total of 24 counties. 17 of the 24 counties has the full product. Note that there are still some Lynda.com subscriptions available, in interested contacted Lisa Meredith. There were no outstanding invoices requiring approval Pat Martinson made a motion, seconded by John Thompson and unanimously carried, to approve the financial report date September 2017 as presented. Member Concerns/Other Business 1. The Rules and Regulation of the Minnesota Counties Computer Cooperative Xerox Tax User Group were discussed with the following being noted: a. Should references to Xerox Tax User Group to updated to Conduent. It was noted that the current contact is with Xerox and they have not made a request for a change. This should probably be addressed prior to the annual conference and resolved at that time. b. A mission statement and vision statement for this user group. Do we need mission and vision statements, who looks at them and how often are these statements looked at and reviewed? The committee will look towards Lisa Meredith for guidance. c. Page 3 Article III Section 1 Part 2 (Recording Officer) and Page 9 Appendix A (County List) needs to be updated. 2. The enhancement/change request form submitted by Jason McCaslin requesting the construction of a cross county report was noted and briefly discussed. The Enhancement and Issues Committee will be reviewing this request at their meeting this afternoon. 3. Enhancement T Homestead Status Code and Dates has been approved. This enhancement request was discussed briefly and it was noted that it needs to be year specific. 4. NCOA Files were discussed. 5. There was discussion regarding a vendor s request that the county map the location of the data contained with the files to where that data would be located on the proposed tax form.

5 Reminder - Date Location October 19th, November 16th, December 21st, January 18th, February 15th, Changed to February 22, 2018 March 15th, April 19th, May 17th, Adjourn Hearing no further business, Pat Martinson made a motion, seconded by Troy Stewart and unanimously carried, to adjourn the Tax Advisory Committee meeting 11:25 a.m. Minutes respectively submitted by, Wayne Stein, Otter Tail County