The Scurry County Hospital District board of directors, on Wednesday, will discuss the loss of mineral values reported by the Scurry County Appraisal District earlier this month.
The board learned of T.Y. Pickett’s error after it adopted its tax rate and budget. T.Y. Pickett works with the Scurry County Appraisal district to set mineral values.
Cogdell Memorial Hospital Chief Executive Officer Ella Helms said she did not know if the company’s insurance company would pay for the loss of ad valorem, or property tax, revenue.
“We have asked our hospital attorney to determine what options are available to us,” she said. Those options could be presented during Wednesday’s meeting.
The district could lose an additional $245,000 in revenue due to the lower mineral values, according to Helms.
“We had already reduced our total 2017 tax levy by about $486,000 in response to the declining mineral valuations and in an effort to keep our tax rate as low as possible,” she said. “The miscalculation of the valuations detected on Aug. 31 will result in an additional loss of $245,000. To address the tax shortfall, we will try to further reduce expenses and continue to look for other revenue sources.”
The miscalculation also affected Western Texas College, Snyder ISD and Scurry County.
Snyder ISD officials are pulling money from reserves to cover the lost mineral values while the county, which did not set its tax rate until after the mistake came to light, increased its tax rate to cover the mistake.
The college, which could lose up to $291,936 according to figures complied by Scurry County Chief Appraiser Larry Crooks, has frozen hiring non-essential personnel and eliminated all non-essential travel.
WTC President Dr. Barbara Beebe said the school’s administration does not want to layoff employees due to the error.
She said Pickett is planning to file an insurance claim. According to Beebe, the company has not had to file a claim before.
“They’ve never had one so we have no idea what will happen,” she said.
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