PUEBLO COUNTY — A Pueblo County neighborhood is considered a “flood zone” under the Pueblo Conservancy District, but their homes are on a hill.
It’s an error that could go back nearly nine years, and homeowners have been paying the cost to the tune of hundreds of dollars.
Caitlin McDonough purchased a property in the Salt Creek neighborhood about five years ago. It includes a garage and two homes.
Wanting more space as she and her husband were growing their family, they found another home in Pueblo County. Which meant more than one tax bill coming her way.
That’s when something caught her eye.
“I kind of noticed that those two property amounts, the property taxes, were almost the same, even though this [Salt Creek] property is much, much smaller square footage wise and the parcel size.” McDonough said.
She then did what most people would do and went line by line on her bills. McDonough noticed there was a big difference in what she was being charged for the Pueblo Conservancy Maintenance Fund.
“That's when I started trying to ask questions: What is this tax? Why is it so high in this neighborhood?” McDonough said.
She reached out to the county treasurer’s office to learn more.
“The lady working the desk there said that it had to do with our proximity to the river,” McDonough said, “I was like, oh, okay, that’s kind of weird because we're not really that close to the river.”
The closest point of the Arkansas River to the neighborhood is about a half-mile.
Months passed and in July McDonough received a letter from the Pueblo Conservancy District.
In the letter, the district admitted it incorrectly assessed the property as being in a flood zone. The district refunded her nearly $900 for the past three years.
The letter sent to McDonough showed she paid $271.24 in 2021 and 2022 when she should have only paid $17.44. In 2023 she paid $410.20, when she should have paid $26.38.
“To receive the refund of almost $900 is pretty significant for us,” McDonough said, “I mean, it could have helped us pay off debt. It could have been, um, money that we could have invested in, in helping us get this new property.”
She contacted her neighbors at her former home and asked them about their tax bills. It turns out they all realized they had also been paying more.
Neighbors did not receive any contact from the Pueblo Conservancy District.
“So if they didn't notify us, were they ever?” Nadine Triste, who has lived in the Salt Creek neighborhood for 36 years said.
Rick Kidd is the administrator for the Pueblo Conservancy District.
He told News5Investigates that the district did not reach out to neighbors. Kidd said the district has since learned the entire street was incorrectly assessed as living in a flood zone.
The district has three tiers of classification for property owners: 1) Living in the flood zone 2) Outside of the flood zone in the county 3) Outside of the flood zone in the city of Pueblo.
Kidd said this street is not in the flood zone.
“We don't know for sure how long it's been going on for the neighborhood,” Kidd said, “we know that in 2013 and 2014, it was correctly assessed. We know that, well, we know that three years ago it had been moved up, but haven't done the research to really see before that.”
Meaning neighbors could have been paying hundreds more to the district for nearly nine years.
That doesn’t sit well with neighbors in Salt Creek.
When asked if the three-year time period seemed reasonable to McDonough she said “No. Absolutely not.”
Neighbors don’t just want the difference in the fees they paid, they want interest on those payments.
“if I don't pay my taxes on time, I have to pay interest. So they took our money for heaven knows how many years. And when they paid her back she got no interest. So we still want our questions answered,” Triste said.
News5Investigates asked Kidd if it was fair for neighbors not to receive interest on the payments.
“I don't have a response to that. I'm telling you what we have done,” Kidd said, when asked if he would think it was fair if he were in their position he said “if I was in that position. I'd feel grateful that somebody was trying to, trying to make it right.”
The Pueblo Conservancy District meets on August 28th, Kidd said that’s when he plans to have the money back to these neighbors.
“My goal is to have checks made ready for signature on that margin between what was assessed and what should have been assessed and have those ready at the board meeting on the end of the month,” Kidd said.
Whether or not this is a widespread problem in the county remains to be seen. Kidd repeatedly said the district is doing research on what happened.
Questions remain including whether or not an audit will happen to determine if this error happened across the county.
“I see that we will be doing that [an audit], after we know the areas of impact, then we will be looking at the parcels,” Kidd said, “ here are, like, 96,000 parcels across the county. Not all of those 96,000 were affected. We'll be trying to find out. Okay, what area? And then we'll zeroing in on those those parcels that were affected and work on trying to get things corrected.”
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