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Data breached? Get credit monitoring, officials urge
YOUNGSTOWN
Officials of Mahoning Valley cities whose income taxes are collected by the Regional Income Tax Agency of Ohio urge anyone who may have been affected by RITA’s recently announced potential data breach to take advantage of that agency’s offer of free credit monitoring and identity protection services for a year.
“It’s in their best interest,” said Campbell city Finance Director Michael Evanson.
So far, Evanson said he knows of only one Campbell city income taxpayer who has received a letter from RITA saying that taxpayer’s personal information may have been breached.
“They should take it,” said Youngstown Finance Director Dave Bozanich, urging affected taxpayers to take advantage of the monitoring offer. “It’s good to have and it’s a free service for people who should be somewhat concerned.”
In Girard, where there are 6,000 city income taxpayers, Mayor James Melfi said he did not yet know if any of his city’s taxpayers’ information has been breached.
“If they’re not notified, they’re not going to be involved,” Melfi said of his city’s income taxpayers.
However, he urged anyone who is notified by RITA of a possible breach to take advantage of the free credit monitoring through Experian.
RITA is making the notifications by letter and “will not contact impacted individuals about this event by telephone, e-mail or social media,” said Amy L. Arrighi, the agency’s chief legal counsel.
The regional tax-collection agency recently announced that a missing DVD containing copies of income tax documents submitted in June 2012 and earlier may have contained names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and financial information for about 50,000 individuals.
That number represents less than 2 percent of the total number of taxpayers whose accounts are handled by RITA.
“Nothing in our investigation indicates that the DVD was stolen or that there has been any misuse of information,” Arrighi said.
“Our investigation to locate the missing DVD led us to the conclusion that it was most likely destroyed.”
Both Girard and Campbell have had their income taxes collected by RITA for more than a decade. RITA has collected Youngstown income tax for about 15 years.
RITA collects annual city income tax totaling about $40 million for Youngstown, $3.4 million for Girard and $1,4 million for Campbell.
RITA officials have said about 675 of the 50,000 affected taxpayers are Youngstown city income taxpayers, Bozanich told City Council Wednesday.
“We’re not aware of anybody who’s had any financial hardship or difficulty because of this,” Bozanich told council.
While preparing DVDs for secure destruction, RITA discovered Nov. 10 that a DVD case was empty and the DVD used in its former system backup process was missing and began its investigation.
The regional tax agency was arranging for the DVD destruction because it had converted to a new, more secure backup system, which made the DVDs obsolete.
Melfi, Evanson and Bozanich said their cities have gotten good results from RITA.
Girard pays RITA about $70,000 annually and Campbell pays RITA about $43,000 annually for tax collection.
Bozanich said Youngstown, which has about 15,000 city income taxpayers, pays that agency $700,000 to $800,000 annually for this service.
If Youngstown were to reinstate its own tax collection department to provide the same level of service, the cost to the city likely would be at least 50 percent above that figure, Bozanich said.
Evanson and Melfi said their cities could not operate their own income tax collection departments as cheaply as RITA performs this service.
Melfi, Evanson and Bozanich said, by handling tax collections for 254 Ohio cities and villages, RITA achieves the benefit of “economies of scale.”
Bozanich also said RITA has the advantage of being able to identify scofflaws by cross-checking and identifying discrepancies between federal, state and local tax forms filed by the same taxpayers. The city couldn’t legally do that, he said.
“It’s been very cost effective, and it’s been very accurate,” Evanson said of the regional agency’s service.
“We’ve had nothing but good results from our association with RITA,” Melfi said.
“They are professionals. They understand the business of income-tax collection,” Melfi added.
“We have a good relationship with them. They’ve done a very professional job over the years,” Bozanich said.
In the depths of its fiscal emergency, Girard joined RITA in 2004, and RITA immediately boosted city income tax collections there by 11 percent over the previous year, Melfi recalled.
This recently announced potential breach is the first problem with the regional agency the cities of Girard and Youngstown have had, Melfi and Bozanich said.
To serve the Mahoning Valley, the Brecksville-based RITA has an office on the mezzanine at 20 Federal Place in downtown Youngstown.
Its toll-free customer service phone number, 1-866-940-3613, was answered within a few seconds Wednesday afternoon by a live operator, who said she was in Portland, Ore.