Montco says it cleared a $100 million tax backlog. No one will say how long the county was behind.

Montgomery County Register of Wills Tina Lawson touted the successful clearing of a $100 million backlog in inheritance taxes and returns in a news release last month celebrating her first 100 days in office.

But questions remain about how one of the wealthiest and most populous counties in the state developed such a large backlog — accounting for roughly six months of work, based on past audits of the inheritance checks the county processes per year. Lawson couldn’t explain how the issue developed, and her predecessor, who attributed processing delays in the office to staffing issues, accused her of exaggerating it.

State officials confirmed Montgomery County has processed inheritance taxes slower than its counterparts in other counties, but the true scale of the issue is unclear, as is how long the problem has persisted. Former staff members in the office said it was being consistently worked on even before Lawson took office. But once she took over in January, the county devoted new staff to solve the problem.

”I don’t know how it came to this, I have no idea,” Lawson said in an interview last week, though she was careful to note she did not want to criticize former Register of Wills Bruce Hanes, who left office in January.

A county register of wills is responsible for probate, marriage licenses, and inheritance tax filings. In all Pennsylvania counties, those offices deposit inheritance tax checks into a shared state bank account as they process them — and that function is where Montgomery County fell behind.

Registers of Wills in Chester and Delaware Counties said they had never encountered significant delays in their processing — though those counties handle a smaller number of checks annually.

“In my experience and to my knowledge there has never been a backlog of that type in the county,” Delaware County Register of Wills Vincent Rongione said.

In Montgomery County, Lawson said taxpayers were not penalized for their checks reaching the state late because the department timestamps returns once they are received by the office.

The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue confirmed last week that Montgomery County was processing returns slower than other counties, but did not respond to questions about how long the slow processing had been an issue.

“We are hopeful that processing times in this county will improve moving forward,” Kendra Martin, a spokesperson for the department, said in an email.

Hanes, who was Montgomery County’s register of wills for 16 years, was skeptical that the backlog was $100 million; he suggested there were about five or six bins of checks, not 65, as Lawson had announced.

“Something got distorted somewhere in between in between reality and the press release,” he said. “And that’s an opinion.”

Lawson said each processed check was documented but that there was no comprehensive inventory of those that had been delayed. The Inquirer requested records that would indicate how much was processed from the office before and after she took office but has not yet received a response.

“We’ve cleared them all so I can’t go back and show you what was there because we took care of everything,” Lawson said.

Hanes, who applauded Lawson for clearing the backlog, said the problem was caused by understaffing and a collection of checks that could not be processed to the state because taxpayers had neglected to pay a filing fee with the county. Staffing issues, Hanes said, began with COVID-19 but persisted in the following years.

“We wound up with a real staffing issue,” he said. “We couldn’t hire people because the county was paying so little.”

Three former employees of the Register of Wills Office who asked not to be named said taxpayers who interacted with the office were regularly informed about the backlog and told they may see a delay in money being removed from their accounts. Staff, they said, had been steadily working to catch up as new returns continued to be filed.

The Montgomery County Controller’s office is currently in the process of auditing the department for the three-year period ending in 2020.

The state’s most recent audit covered the three-year period ending in 2022. According to that audit, Montgomery County processed more than $655 million in inheritance taxes in three years, amounting to roughly $200 million each year during that time period.

Lawson, who was elected to office in November, was endorsed by Hanes, a fellow Democrat. She said she learned about the backlog through conversations with existing staff members when she took office. She said she quickly communicated with the county’s board of commissioners about it.

“I came in, I saw it, I talked to the county about it, they saw it, we worked on it, we got it done,” she said.

According to a county spokesperson, Montgomery County reassigned three county employees each day to clear all the checks, totaling 400 hours of work. They also spent $42,443 for four workers from a temporary staffing agency to assist.

Jamila Winder, a Democrat who chairs of the board of commissioners, said she was proud of the way Lawson had risen to the challenge of clearing the backlog.

“I pride myself on partnering with our row officers on all the good things that they’re doing but also when there’s signs of challenge, and this was an example of that,” commissioner Jamila Winder said. “She walked into, you know, a challenging situation and I’m really proud of her as a colleague to see the way in which she handled it and made the necessary improvements.”

Republican Commissioner Tom DiBello said he was pleased to hear the backlog had been cleared, acknowledging the challenges that came to government offices during COVID-19.

“It’s hard to, you know, clear the backlog and then have new stuff coming in during that time,” he said. “I know that was a goal and objective she was working diligently on trying to get it cleared.”