Because the Department of Assessments and Taxation has the best available
data concerning property ownership, the Department has agreed to
assist local governments to identify properties which are served
by public water and sewer or which have septic systems. Initial
identification of sewer, water, and septic was done in conjunction
with the Maryland Department of Planning.
On screen 3 of ADC, the Utility fields are used to indicate the
type of water and sewer service: 1 = public, 2 = private, 0 = no
data. These fields are on the July billing tapes at position 463
for one character for water and position 464 for one character for
sewer. It is not the responsibility of assessment office personnel
to update these fields. Changes to these fields will be transmitted
to the assessment office by local governments.
For septic system users, there is a $30 charge per unit. Local
governments are using the number of dwelling units to determine
the number of units. This is in position 1593 for four characters.
Counties may not request a change to the number of dwelling units
in the residential file. However, they may send a list of properties
with a number of associated units for commercial properties. These
will need to be changed on the income page, total units field, in
CAMA in order to change the mainframe. If there is already a number
of units in that field that corresponds to the number of apartments,
slips, pad sites, etc. for that particular account, the county may
not request a change to that field. However, if the county has determined
the number of offices, retail spaces, etc. the commercial assessor
may choose to enter this data into CAMA to be uploaded to the ADC
system.
In the future, the Department of the Environment hopes to develop
a Statewide property database to assist in the distribution of money
for failing septic systems. Their database will be constructed from
assessment records.
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