A printing glitch kept 20,500 Denver homeowners from receiving a statement updating their property values at the start of May.
Even more disconcerting to Denver County Assessor Paul Jacobs, so few people noticed and complained that the error went undetected for two weeks.
On May 1, the city sent out 205,000 notices of reassessment, something done every two years. The notices tell property owners what the city thinks their homes are worth, a key variable in determining how much property tax they will pay in 2008 and 2009.
The notices were printed in 10 batches of 20,500. But batch eight printed twice, while batch nine didn’t print, Jacobs said.
Workers counting the total number of pieces didn’t catch the error, and neither did homeowners, despite numerous print and broadcast stories on the topic of property-tax notices.
Homes in the Washington-Virginia Dale, Windsor, Virginia Village and Indian Creek neighborhoods were left out, along with a portion of the Goldsmith neighborhood.
The city eventually caught the error, not because 110 of the 20,500 homeowners complained about not getting a notice but because 250 or so complained about receiving two notices.
“How good is my public relations if people don’t know my notices aren’t out there?” Jacobs asked.
The city printed out and mailed new notices June 1 at a cost of $12,000. Homeowners will have until July 1 to protest their valuations, which they can do by mail or online, the city’s preferred method, at
The assessor’s office doesn’t expect many protests, given that increases in most of these neighborhoods were below the citywide average.
Jacobs apologized to property owners in a statement sent out with the notices and said his office has added a system to examine ZIP codes and avoid repeating the error.
Staff writer Aldo Svaldi can be reached at 303-954-1410 or asvaldi@denverpost.com.
