“Corrected” tax bills questioned by taxpayers

Despite the big, all-caps stamp of “corrected” across the last round of Valencia County property tax bills, many taxpayers are saying the new bills are anything but correct.

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Both the Valencia County assessor and treasurer say they don’t know why the new bills sent out at the end of December are such a mess in regards to the distribution line items, but they are confident the rates are correct and the total amount owed is accurate.

The original error discovered when bills went out in November 2025 nearly doubled the mil rate for the county’s residential operational funding — from 6.733 mils to more than 11 — and the second round of bills seems to have duplicated charges for three local agencies. A mil is equal to $1 per $1,000 of net taxable value of a property.

Now, on the corrected bills, two line items for the Middle Rio Grande Conservation District, Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District and the Valencia County Arroyo Flood Control District have been included on many tax bills, with each entry showing a different tax amount due.

For instance, on a side-by-side comparison of the tax bill from November and a “corrected” bill from December for a residential property in the Los Lunas Schools district posted to a local Facebook group, the original bill shows the amount due for the flood control district is $30.10 with a tax rate of .500.

That amount appears on the corrected bill, along with a second line item indicating $23.54 is due, at the same tax rate.

On social media posts, county residents have speculated one of the charges is the old amount from the incorrect bill that was somehow carried over to the new, corrected bill.

The correct valuations were submitted to New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department and the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration and the corrected mil rates were returned to the county by Nov. 25. Since a 2025 tax roll already existed in the county’s software system, it initially wouldn’t accept a new roll, but it was eventually imported and the new bills were sent out.

Valencia County Treasurer Ron Saiz said in conversations with Tyler, the software company the county uses to calculate property tax valuations and bill, the company’s best theory is that when the new tax roll was imported, “it kind of conflicted with what had been there and it just jumbled all those distribution rates.”

Saiz said Tyler found a way to allow the assessor’s office to print out a detailed distribution list for taxpayers, which is correct, but hasn’t been able to do the same for his office.

“We want something to give to the customers,” he said. “They have something on the assessor’s side; what about our side?”

The treasurer said having to replace a tax roll isn’t common, so having Tyler go back into its system to clean up the problem was something Tyler “didn’t seem like they were going to entertain,” Saiz said.

Chief Deputy Treasurer Russell Schmidt asked taxpayers to come to the office to get information from “the horses mouth” instead of relying on social media.

“We will answer anybody’s question,” Schmidt said.

The chief deputy also said when the new tax roll was uploaded it did create an error in regards to special assessments for agencies like MRGCD. If someone paid the first half of their November bill, when Tyler redid the rolls, they pulled the payment out and reapplied it, but as a full payment and not to special assessments, thus showing special assessment taxes were in arrears for some taxpayers.

“All of a sudden, there’s a balance on the first half coupons,” he said.

Schmidt said the payment is reflected and accounted for in the county’s payment system but not on the printed bill.

Saiz reiterated payments will be back dated to Dec. 10 and there won’t be any penalties or interest applied for the first half of 2025 taxes.

“We’re kind of in the infancy of this part of the problem and we need a little bit of time to get this figured out,” Saiz said. “It will take time, but it will come to an end.”

In November, Valencia County Assessor Dittmaier told the News-Bulletin she entered the incorrect nonresidential property valuation amount for the village of Los Lunas — setting the valuation at more than $2 billion rather than the $200-plus million is should have been.

After the error on the November bills came to light, on Nov. 24, the Valencia County Commission authorized an investigation into the situation. County Manager Jhonathan Aragon asked Cibola County Chief Deputy Assessor Jenna Rodriguez to investigate and review the incident.

On Dec. 19, Rodriguez sent a one-page letter to Aragon, essentially referring the matter over to the state.

In the letter, she indicates she reviewed the county’s PTD-03 — in internal form county assessors use to report property valuation to the state — and compared that information to the data manually entered into the software that provides integrated property tax administration, billing and collection for the county.

“... I identified significant discrepancies between the two data sets,” she wrote. “While I initially agreed to review Valencia County’s data in an effort to assist with identifying the issue, I believe it would be most appropriate for me to step back from any further review at this time.

“Given the nature of the data entry discrepancies observed, I recommend requesting technical assistance from the Property Tax Division, as they are best positioned to provide guidance and support to ensure accuracy and consistency.”

In a Jan. 3 Facebook post on her personal page, Dittmaier explained while compiling information for the investigation, she found a June email exchange between herself and an assessment specialist with the New Mexico Tax and Revenue Department showing the error was identified and corrected in the spring, before the original bills were sent out.

“Now corrected bills have been sent out (and) people are coming for me again because there appears there might be another error,” the assessor wrote in her post. “My staff has been berated and worked countless hours to create the new tax authorities and tax areas to make sure this was corrected and I do not want them to go through this again. If you get a chance to thank my staff, I would appreciate it.”

Dittmaier provided the News-Bulletin with the email chain between her and Jacklyn Gottlieb, senior assessment specialist for NMTRD.

On June 25, Gottlieb wrote to Dittmaier, saying she was beginning her review of the county’s annual property tax certification, noting the unprotested value in “1-IN NR” — the tax area for non-residential properties in Los Lunas — was $2,069,562,940.

“Last year, it was $210,792,452 so that’s a pretty significant increase of $1,858,770,488,” Gottlieb wrote. “I didn’t see anything in the filer comments for this year, so if you will let me know where this came from, I would greatly appreciate it.”

Dittmaier responded, “It looks like I accidentally added a zero on the end of there. My report shows ($)206,956,294.”

Gottlieb writes back, indicating she sent the PTD-03s back for the assessor to amend, and asking Dittmaier to double check the rest of the forms to see if there are any others she needs to send back.

On June 26, Gottlieb emailed Dittmaier to ask her to complete the filer certification for the PTD-03 amendment. The email chain doesn’t contain a response from the assessor.

On Nov. 21, Dittmaier forwarded the email chain with Gottlieb to Valencia County Manager Jhonathan Aragon, county attorney David Pato and Property Tax Division Director Ira Pearson.

In an interview Wednesday morning, Dittmaier said Gottlieb’s June email was part of the checks and balances in place to make sure rates are correct before they are certified and sent to DFA.

“The only thing I can think is one of two things — either she opened the portal back up and I fixed it and somehow the original rates got to DFA before I fixed it, or she opened it back up, I fixed it and maybe I didn’t hit save, and they certified it anyway without double checking,” Dittmaier said.

When asked if she felt like Gottlieb would have reached out a second time if the rates were still incorrect, the assessor said, “Absolutely. She reached out the first time. If it still wasn’t corrected, I feel like she would have come back again.”

The assessor said if a tax area gains or loses value, she has to write a justification when she submits the rates each year.

“There have been times when the village (of Los Lunas) annexed property, for example, so the county lost (value) and the village gained,” she said. “That has to be explained, so with this large increase, she flagged it.”

Dittmaier said she was 100 percent confident the rates have been corrected, but since the assessor’s office doesn’t handle the billing, she couldn’t say how the errors were introduced into the printed bill.

“I don’t send these out, so this is Greek to me,” Dittmaier said in regards to the printed bills sent out by the treasurer’s office.

Comparing a bill for a tax payer to online information, the assessor showed while the calculations for the line items were wrong on the printed bill, on the county’s portal, there were no duplicate line items, the distribution line items are correct and the amount owed matched.

“From what we’ve seen, the bottom line number is correct. The calculations are wrong (on the printed bill). We are encouraging everybody to come to the office and we can print this for them so then can see. They can do the calculations themselves and see that what’s in our system is calculated correctly,” she said.

Although she talked to Dittmaier personally on Tuesday, Erika Chavez went home more confused than when she started.

“They printed out a version (of my bill) from their system and is shows the total matching,” Chavez said. “But none of their (line item subtotals) matched mine. None of them. I’m not paying. I’ll be back in a month to see if they’ve fixed things.”

While at the assessor’s office, Chavez said she heard another taxpayer say she paid $400 when she received her bill in November, but now the county’s system only reflected a payment of $262.

“Where’s the other $138? None of their numbers match. Everyone is pointing fingers back and forth. No one wants to take accountability,” she said. “They said it’s a system error. This is the second mishap in one fiscal year. We shouldn’t have to go over their work.

“There’s a chance it’s a system error but they need to take account and let the community know what’s going on. I don’t think people should pay until they figure this out.”

Chavez said her bill was $300 higher that it should have been, which is a week’s groceries for her family.

“The line was out the door and they said it’s been like that since 8 a.m. Monday. This is people’s money and now-a-days, money doesn’t go as far as it used to,” she said. “This is two errors in the last few months and people are on edge.”

As a Valencia County taxpayer and an elected official for a local government agency, Teresa Smith de Cherif is seeing the errors on the corrected tax bills from both sides of the fence.

“There is no basis for any one of the calculations on this tax bill. When I say no basis, I mean the calculations do not add up,” said de Cherif, who is a property owner as well as the chairwoman of the Valencia Soil and Water Conservation District board of supervisors. She has served on the board for 17 years.

Looking over her bill, de Cherif said there are errors that benefit local, state and county government, as well as errors that benefit the taxpayer.

“Nonetheless, these are errors of magnitude,” she said.

In regards to her property specifically, the tax rate for her municipality is 2.652 mils and the net taxable value of her property is $98,440.

“If you multiply the next taxable value by .002652, you get $261.06. That’s not what’s on the bill. They have $208.67. There’s no way that math is correct,” de Cherif said.

Going through each agency due a distribution from her specific bill, she said almost every one of them is undercut on what it is supposed to receive in tax dollars.

“Sometimes by $50, sometimes by a couple hundred,” she said. “It matters.”

Approaching the issue from the standpoint of an elected official with a fiduciary responsibility, de Cherif says the errors are very serious, since from all appearances, the bills impose additional mil levies by local governing bodies, in violation of state statute.

“This is serious, legally serious,” she said.

As a former member of the Valencia County Arroyo Flood Control District board of directors, de Cherif was part of the governing body that approved a half mil levy for operational costs for the fledgling agency.

“That body has statutory authority to impose a half mil levy for operational expenses without going out to the public. It does not have the authority to receive a whole mil,” she said.

The same holds true for the quarter mil the VSWCD collects, which also appears twice on some tax bills.

“We are only authorized to collect a quarter mil levy. They are breaking the law. We didn’t go out (to the voters) to raise our levy,” the chairwoman said.

Another error on the bills de Cherif noted is one of the mil rates for the University of New Mexico-Valencia Campus. On the first bill, the rate for the branch campus is 1.876 but on the corrected bill, the rate drops slightly to 1.874.

“UNM Valencia is an separate entity, just like soil and water. How did (the county) have the authority to change that rate? They have the authority to change their own rate, but no one else’s,” she said.

Dittmaier said one of the mil rates for UNM-Valencia did change from November to December after DFA corrected and sent back the rates.

“Those are calculated by (the New Mexico) Higher Education Department, and that was one thing we had to wait on,” she said.

Looking at her bill, de Cherif also questions the county’s rounding decisions, arguing amounts should not be rounded up when they are less than .5.

“In my case, if you look at soil and water, if I didn’t get a veteran’s exemption due to my husband being a veteran, my bill would be $27.11 but they made it $27.12,” she said. “If you multiply that by say 50,000 voters, that’s an extra $500 in income (for VSWCD) I don’t want as chair. I don’t want people to be assessed one penny more than they should be, especially our veteran families. I know the sacrifices they have endured. They gave everything in service of their country and don’t owe a penny more than they should.

“They’re telling people these bills are correct and they aren’t.”

De Cherif said she will be consulting with the VSWCD attorney about the situation, stressing the district absolutely would not accept a distribution of tax dollars more than the quarter mil it’s legally entitled to.

“These bills are so wrong on a variety of levels. It’s an absolute disgrace; local government at its worst. These new bills once again missed several control checks,” she said. “Why didn’t the treasurer figure this out. Why didn’t the county commission? Taxation and revenue?

“This needs to go to the state auditor. Their entire books need to be examined. If they are making these errors collecting money, what kind of errors are they making spending money? This is not partisan. It’s about doing our jobs. Elected officials have to earn the publics trust and that’s been lost.”