by Jon Baliles

The Richmond water crisis on January 6th immediately and obviously grabbed everyone’s attention because it came on suddenly and left city residents without safe water for six days. People were scrambling for water long before the city even notified the public that afternoon. The city’s Finance Department has had challenges for years, but lately, it better resembles the flooded water plant the morning of the meltdown because it has been inundated and can not effectively deliver what it is supposed to.

Sheila White has been the director since Mayor Stoney put her in charge four years ago, and it has been one deluge after another of mistakes and stories, from the meals tax fiasco, to 66,000 personal property tax bills sent in error, and now the inability to issue one-time real estate rebate checks (they even mailed 156 checks to addresses that don’t exist). There have been stories about poor work conditions, lack of training, et al, but former Mayor Stoney maintained last summer the department was in great shape and running like a Swiss watch.

It is beyond time for Mayor Avula to wake up and stop believing the staffers from the Stoney administration that are still in City Hall who are telling him everything is fine. Avula needs to find someone who can come in and raise the Titanic, put the airplane back together, and has the skill to fix the Finance Department by breaking it down and building it back up again to a functioning department.

After last week’s issue that spotlighted how Finance incorrectly canceled some of the checks that were actually written correctly and then bounced when property owners tried to cash them and also sent some checks to people who bought their houses in 2024 and were ineligible for a rebate. Skip forward a few days and Keyris Manzanares at VPM News had a forensic analysis of the latest debacle. He spoke with Daniel Wavering, who got a letter from the city’s Finance Department that he thought was a scam (which is a big hint something is wrong).

“The letter said something to the effect of ‘Hey, you might be getting a — or you may have received a rebate check for your property taxes addressed to somebody else.’ Their instructions were to either return it or destroy it, and that they would send the correct one out,” Wavering said.

He had never received a check from the city (another hint) so he threw the letter out and later learned on Reddit that what happened to him was happening all over the city, which deepened his doubts about the city’s ability to perform basic services.

“It continues to affect my trust in the city, and it’s not just a one-off,” said Wavering, who said each of his contacts with the city government has been “not as smooth as you would expect, or outright negative or extremely frustrating. At this point, I’m almost at an eye roll.”

We have had readers send us issues that are more proof that the process is broken and the excuses from the Finance Director are out of gas.

One reader sent us their personal property tax bill, received last week, that listed his 2004 Honda with 227,000 miles as being valued at $32,000, which resulted in a tax bill of $1,078. The city has been billing him correctly for 21 years with the same vehicle identification number, but this year the Honda is suddenly worth ten times its blue book value. He also wrote that ten years ago, the city billed him $800 for a Subaru that he didn’t own (and never had). He had to go to City Hall and was told he had to prove he didn’t own the Subaru to avoid the tax.

Another reader sent some screen grabs from Ginter Park where the exact same situation is playing out, so it is safe to assume this is not an isolated one-off (just ask your Council rep how many calls they get about financial billing issues).

Back in March, when the news came out that the city had sent 8,300 property rebate checks out to property owners with the same payee, listed as Hartshorn Community Council (HCC), that caught Albert Ruffin’s eye because he is the treasurer of that homeowners association that manages 100 townhomes. He started getting calls in March about the checks made to HCC from property owners and realized most addresses were not associated with or managed by HCC. Ruffin didn’t deposit in the checks because he knew they were written in error.

“I’m just amazed to find out it’s that many and that leaves it open for abuse, because if the wrong person gets their hands on it, they could possibly cash those checks,” Ruffin said. “And they might come after us for the money.”

As for Wavering, he believes (correctly) that this problem gets fixed at the top: “I think it starts with the mayor creating a culture of there being actual accountability,” Wavering said. “And then people will either move in line with that culture, or they’ll move out.”

The Mayor needs to start listening to the people a little bit more.

Jon Baliles is a former Richmond city councilman. This column is republished here with permission from his Substack account, RVA 5X5.