Attorneys for Collector of Revenue Julie Schaumberg are arguing that an order from the Warren County Commission to waive late fees on a tax bill are outside the bounds of state law.

They are joined in that assessment by representatives of the statewide County Employees’ Retirement Fund, which receives a portion of late fees on tax bills.

A judge on Aug. 30 delivered a preliminary ruling in favor of Warren County’s governing commission in a lawsuit against the collector. Schaumberg was given 30 days to respond to that ruling, which an attorney did on Sept. 28.

Franklin County Associate Circuit Judge David L. Hoven, appointed to hear the case, will deliver a final decision at a later date.

Schaumberg is the elected official in charge of receiving and processing property tax payments for Warren County. The Warren County Commission is seeking a court order forcing Schaumberg to waive late fees and interest on a county resident’s $832 tax bill.

After Hoven’s preliminary ruling in favor of the commission, Lydia McEvoy, an attorney for Schaumberg, said the collector’s legal team intended to convince the judge to reverse course and deliver a final ruling in the collector’s favor.

The response filed by McEvoy Sept. 28 focuses heavily on the fact that although the taxpayer in question claims to have sent a check, the tax bill was never paid. While Missouri law says the county commission might order a refund for a bill that was paid under protest, McEvoy said there is no provision for waiving late fees before they are paid.

“(State statute) specifies the ways in which a collector may issue refunds, and all of those ways presume that the taxpayer has first timely paid her tax bill,” Mc-Evoy stated. “Because the taxpayer in this case did not timely pay her tax bill (and still has not paid her tax bill), it is impossible for collector to issue a refund.”

McEvoy said also that late fees and interest are assigned to delinquent tax bills based on state law, not by any decision of the county collector. She drew a distinction between the commission being allowed by state law to correct a mistake in the original tax bill, as opposed to having authority to determine whether a bill was paid on time.

Fees go to many agencies

Schaumberg and her attorneys have maintained that one of the reasons they cannot waive the late penalties is because Missouri law assigns portions of that money to various other tax-funded entities.

Late fees have continued to accrue on the unpaid tax bill through September, McEvoy said. The chief beneficiaries of those penalties, she said, would be Warren County R-III School District, which would receive $113, and the County Employees’ Retirement Fund (CERF), which would receive $49.

Representatives of CERF are seeking to intervene in the legal dispute on behalf of Schaumberg. CERF is established by Missouri law as a statewide fund for county employee retirement benefits.

In a legal filing to the circuit court, CERF said any declaration that the county commission has authority to forgive penalties and interest payable to CERF could threaten to reduce the retirement benefits available to its members.

Attorneys for CERF concur with the position that the collector can’t refund a bill that hasn’t been paid. In addition, the attorneys state the Warren County Commission has ordered Schaumberg to “violate statutes governing collection of taxes and compromise penalties that benefit the CERF retirement fund.”

A date has not yet been set for a further hearing or final decision in the dispute between the county commission and Schaumberg.