Town wants to collect taxes on property partly in its borders

A change in tax status means Kaiser Permanente will have to pay Kensington

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006

Kensington could see $11,000 more a year in property taxes now that the status of a business that rests partly in the town’s borders has been clarified.

Kaiser Permanente, a health care provider, built its urgent care facility on Connecticut Avenue in 1988. A little less than half — 48 percent — lies within the town. The rest is on county land.

But because Kaiser was designated as a non-municipal property in 1988, it has not been paying taxes to the town.

‘‘I believe at the time, I think the engineer or the cartographers most likely determined it that way since [more than half of the property] was not in the town,” said Daniel Ercolani, the county’s acting supervisor of assessments with the State Department of Assessments and Taxation.

The department no longer uses cartographers, and there are no records that explain why the decision was made, so it is unclear exactly what happened, Ercolani said.

So the state has decided to change Kaiser’s tax status so that it is responsible for paying town property taxes on the land inside the town. That means about $11,000 a year.

A Kaiser spokeswoman said company officials were unaware they even needed to pay the town property tax, but would do what is necessary to comply with the law.

‘‘We have paid all of our taxes as far as we’ve known we need to pay them,” said Amy Goodwin, director of media relations for Kaiser. ‘‘We’re concerned about the health of the community and want to be a good corporate citizens as well.”

Town officials first found out about the issue in January after Town Councilman Al Carr, doing research for another project, noticed Kaiser had never paid town property taxes.

‘‘When the council organized last July, I took on the finance and land-use role on the council so one of the things I’ve been doing is looking at the town finances and revenues to understand how things are working,” Carr said. ‘‘I found the history in the town files. I was wondering, ‘Should they be paying taxes?’”

The state will contact Kaiser by early March to alert it to the change in its tax status, Ercolani said.

Kaiser has the right to appeal the decision, at which point the company and the department would meet to discuss a resolution.

‘‘It’s not a blame situation,” Ercolani said. ‘‘There are several ways to solve the problem. The first process is that they will come in and assess the situation with us. It’s just a matter of talking.”

The town has the right to claim property taxes for the current year and up to three years earlier, Ercolani said.