The Hamptons is suffering through a large number of town money foul-ups. Last fall, 16,000 residents of Southampton, awaiting state real estate tax rebate checks, were told that somebody in Albany got the residents’ names and streets right, but when it came to the town, they typed in something other than Southampton, which they declined to reveal in order to not cause upset to that other town. When these names did not match up with the zip codes at the post office at the place they were received, the U. S. Postal Service, following official procedure, set them aside for a while so they could engage in official contemplation, and then stamped RETURN TO SENDER on the envelopes. When Albany opened this returned mail two week later, they were shocked to find all these 16,000 letters they had sent out two weeks before.

That situation got straightened out, and the people eventually got their checks, but then last month, the residents of Springs in East Hampton town got hit with another Snafu.

A clerk at East Hampton Town, estimating the town real estate tax that would have to be paid by the residents, added in the wrong amount for the Springs Hamlet School Tax, resulting in bills going out on the fifteenth of December for a larger amount than was actually owed. The error was discovered in an audit done in early January, and an apology letter was sent out to all 3,000 residents (did you receive one? I didn’t and I live in that hamlet) with the promise that the money would be deducted from next year’s tax if you had been a bright eyed and busy tailed citizen and had already promptly paid this year’s tax, though there was no offer to add the interest it would earn.

Now still a third snafu has been discovered, this time once again in Southampton Town. Southampton wanted to make absolutely sure that everybody got their tax bill for 2007 before the deadline of December 15. There had been a delay in figuring out all the taxes and there was another delay at the printer’s so it was going to be a close call, so the Town voted to hand all their town tax envelopes over to a private company to make sure that they got delivered to the post office on time — not the Southampton post office but the Hicksville regional post office where, they were told, mail gets sorted out and delivered all over Long Island faster than if you take it down to the actual post office where it needs to go and hand it to a postal employee, which I find hard to believe.

Anyway, the U. S. Postal Service acknowledges that they received all these letters appropriately — they gave a receipt to the private company on December 13 — but after that they are not quite sure what happened. There was some sort of breakdown in Hicksville and at least some of the 36,960 tax letters — they are not sure how many — seem not to have gotten out to the routes where they were intended, or even out to anywhere else at all. They are looking into it.

In other words, the tax bills for a certain number of Southampton households, more than 1 but less than 36,960, were not delivered and are therefore, even if they finally do get delivered, are going to arrive late thus resulting in an automatic computer generated fine for late filing by those taxpayers that do not pay their taxes on time.

Tax payments were due January 15. The Town doesn’t know what the hell it is going to do. There will not be fines for lateness, maybe. At least for those who got the letters too late, whoever you are and you know who that is.

The most interesting part of all of this is, in my opinion, other than that we all know extremist Islamic terrorist plots come in threes so we can all breathe easy, is the part where the town hires a private firm to bring the letters from Town Hall to the Hicksville post office. Apparently they don’t even trust themselves to do that.

And what did that cost?