Penalty and Interest Refunds Project

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2023

The Penalty and Interest Refunds Project was developed to improve the manual process of providing taxpayer refunds due to roll corrections. The San Bernardino County Auditor-Controller/Treasurer/Tax Collector is responsible for processing the refunds of any penalties, fees, and interest due to the taxpayer. Determining these refunds required staff to manually review and process each claim individually, which was a time-consuming and error-prone process. Due to this manual process, refunds began accumulating over the years, resulting in a multi-year backlog of approximately 4,500 refunds. As a result, staff found it increasingly difficult to process such a large amount and keep up to date with daily incoming refunds. The Tax Collector Division (ATC-TC) teamed up with the Information Technology Division (ATC-ITD) and the Property Tax Division (ATC-PT) to develop the Penalty and Interest Refunds Project. ATC-ITD developed a solution integrated with the 40-year-old mainframe system to monitor the property tax downward corrections and automatically determine refunds eligible for penalty and interest refunds while calculating the correct amount. This innovative solution allows staff to process the penalty and interest refunds in a centralized system while effectively streamlining the business processes. The implementation of this solution reduced processing times, increased productivity and workflow, and freed up valuable staffing resources to perform other critical business processes.