Treasurer candidate assails practice of incumbent

YOUNGSTOWN — Mahoning County’s system of negotiated real estate tax lien sales profits investors but unfairly triggers foreclosures on homeowners and deprives the county of its full tax revenue, according to Atty. John Shultz, who is running for county treasurer.

But the incumbent treasurer, Lisa A. Antonini, defends the program as a valuable tool to collect taxes and return tax delinquent land to productive use.

Shultz, who said he’d suspend his law practice if elected, is challenging Antonini in the March 4 Democratic primary. The treasurer’s job pays $66,233 annually.

“The treasurer is at fault for engaging in this system,” Shultz said. “This system is literally selling away this county,” he added.

Under the system, investors buy bundles of delinquent tax liens, including parcels in prime suburban areas, he said. Shultz said the system aggravates the very abandoned property problem it was designed to fix.

As an example of a flaw in the system, Shultz cited an elderly Boardman widow, whose mortgage was paid off, but who neglected to pay her real estate taxes and ran up a $5,500 arrearage over two years.

When she paid off her mortgage, nobody notified the treasurer’s office, and the bills kept going to the bank, which didn’t forward them to the homeowner, Shultz said.

An investment company, American Tax Funding LLC of Jupiter, Fla., bought the tax lien for $2,284, filed a foreclosure against her and told her she could redeem her property for about $17,000, Shultz said. The company demands full payment of delinquent real estate taxes with 18 percent interest, legal fees and court costs, he said.

The woman, whose closest relative is in Texas, applied for, but was denied, a loan; and the investor refused her offer to pay $400 a month, Shultz said.

Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.