Over 160 Princeton residents who were charged twice for their property taxes this month had to wait several days for a refund. The residents who had paid online were shocked to find a second deduction for the same amount from their bank accounts.

One resident who called Town Topics spoke of the “the incompetence of the Princeton tax collection department,” adding that after being charged on November 13 and then again on November 14, she had called to ask for a refund. “It was clear to me that the staff didn’t know how to do this,” said the caller who wished to remain anonymous.

The incident provoked a slew of calls to the tax office by residents.

According to Princeton’s assistant administrator and director of finance Kathryn Monzo, the double billing happened when an electronic file was submitted to the Bank of Princeton twice in error.

“We have been taking online payments for eight years and this has never happened before,” said Ms. Monzo.

Asked what could be done to prevent such an occurrence from happening again or to make sure that any such issue be handled more quickly, Ms. Monzo said: “We have worked with our bank to reject any duplicate files. For example if the total deposit amount is identical, it will be rejected. This would have red-flagged our mistake. We also have worked with the bank to apply a quicker “fix” if something like this were to ever happen again.”

“Internally we are reviewing our processes and inserting additional checks and balances,” she added.

In response to the possible costs to property owners incurred by the error, such as bank overdraft fees, Ms. Monzo said: “Any fees or charges that taxpayers experience resulting from this mistake will be reimbursed.” Any taxpayers affected in this way should contact the department by telephone: (609) 924-1058.

In all, 163 residents were affected. As of Wednesday, November 20, all had received refunds.

One possible side-effect of the incident is that it may take longer to recover from: loss of confidence in online payments.

The resident who called Town Topics later emailed to say that her family would not be paying online in future as they were unhappy giving the municipality direct access to their bank account. “My family will go back to good old fashioned snail mail to send our property taxes to Princeton,” she wrote.

Such a response is understandable, said Ms. Monzo, when told of the resident’s concerns. She reiterated however that the mistake was the first such in the eight years that the municipality has been taking payments online.

“We are very sorry about the error,” added Mayor Liz Lempert. “We will be reimbursing the affected residents for any charges they received as a result.” she said.“I hope it doesn’t discourage residents from choosing the convenience of paying online, but paying by mail or in person remain options,” she said.