DATE: Friday, September 12, 1997            TAG: 9709120604

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   89 lines

NORFOLK'S TAX MAN PUTTING THE BITE ON PAYCHECKS CITY WORKERS ARE ANGRY, WORRIED THEY CAN'T PAY THEIR BILLS.

City Treasurer Joseph T. Fitzpatrick is cracking down on more than 700 city employees who have failed to pay roughly $193,000 in personal property taxes due three months ago.

Employees were notified this week that the delinquent taxes they owe on such personal property as cars and trucks will be deducted from paychecks they'll receive Monday.

The move has created an uproar among some of the 767 workers, who fear that they won't have enough money left over to pay bills and feed their families. City workers are paid twice a month.

``It's devastating to a family person,'' said William T. Baker, a public works employee who sits on Norfolk's Employee Relations Committee. ``That's going to be quite rough.''

Fitzpatrick said he's just following state law.

``The law says the treasurer shall collect, not may,'' he said. ``It's mandatory.

``If taxes are equal to the paycheck, that will be deducted.''

The treasurer said the tax bills were due June 5. Delinquent taxpayers citywide were sent final notices on Aug. 1, warning them that it was ``in your best interest'' to pay the tax and late penalties by Aug. 15.

The amount that individual employees owe ranges from $10 to more than $1,000, Fitzpatrick said.

About one of three employees who live in Norfolk was delinquent on the tax, officials estimated.

``I think that citizens would think I would be derelict in my

duties if I didn't try to collect the taxes this way,'' Fitzpatrick said. ``After all, these city employees should understand that the citizens as a whole are taxed and the taxes we collect are used in part to pay their salaries.''

City officials said this was the first time that the treasurer's office has gone after the paychecks of city employees en masse to recover unpaid taxes.

Fitzpatrick, however, said his office in the past has placed tax liens or garnisheed the salaries of city workers to collect delinquent taxes.

A major gripe of employees was that they weren't given enough warning that the taxes would be taken from next week's paycheck. Employees said City Manager James B. Oliver Jr. notified them Tuesday through electronic mail that Fitzpatrick planned to deduct the unpaid taxes from Monday's paychecks.

``I am providing this information so that those affected can anticipate the effect of the deduction on their finances,'' Oliver wrote in the message.

Barnell Filhiol, a Utilities Department worker who serves on the Employee Relations Committee, said: ``People are ticked off. There should have been a time frame to pay this off.''

Another committee member, Jane Bethel, who works in Information Services, said: ``The city of Norfolk is trying to encourage employees to live in the city, and this doesn't strike me as a way to do that.''

The action comes as Virginia's gubernatorial candidates vie for votes with competing proposals to cut the personal property tax, one of the state's most loathed taxes.

Routinely, about 20 percent of residents in Norfolk and other Hampton Roads cities fail to pay the tax on time, and that was true this year in Norfolk, Fitzpatrick estimated. Within a year, the delinquency rate typically drops to 2 to 3 percent.

For most localities, the tax ranks second behind real estate taxes as a source of revenue.

Norfolk is not the first Hampton Roads city to go after tax-delinquent employees.

Virginia Beach Treasurer John Atkinson said the Beach in the early 1990s was the first city in the state to go after employees on a large scale.

``They were the low-hanging fruit,'' Atkinson said.

It was easy enough to compare the city's payroll with delinquent taxpayers, he said, which is what Norfolk did. The Beach, Atkinson said, has gone a step further by creating a computer program that identifies employers of taxpayers citywide.

``Now we let citizens know that they owe us money and that we know where they work,'' Atkinson said. ``We're not trying to embarrass them; we're just trying to put money in the bank.''

Norfolk officials, concerned this year about lower-than-projected collections on a range of taxes, have been pushing to decrease the delinquency rate.

But Fitzpatrick, who is a state constitutional officer and is elected by the public, said the decision to deduct the unpaid taxes from employee salaries was his own.

``No member of City Council, no other person in city government,'' Fitzpatrick said, ``advises me as to what my duties are.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo

Joseph T. Fitzpatrick: ``The law says the treasurer shall collect,

not may. It's mandatory.'' KEYWORDS: DELINQUENT PERSONAL PROPERTY TAXES NORFOLK

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