LANGLEY — South Whidbey parks officials will need to raise property taxes next year to cover a $78,000 mistake made by parks staff in calculating the proper tax levy amount last year.

Officials of the South Whidbey Parks & Recreation District said they gave wrong numbers to the Island County Treasurer’s Office when the county was calculating the parks district’s excess levy in 2009 for the 2010 tax year.

The excess levy dates back to 2008, when the district went to voters for a $1.6 million measure to pay for renovating soccer fields, fixing up Castle Park and other projects. But earlier this year, in January, the Island County treasurer notified the parks district that it needed to transfer

$49,000 from the district’s reserve account to the account used to pay debt service on the bonds for the park improvements because there wasn’t enough money to make payments on the debt.

When parks officials began to question why enough money had not been placed in the bond account to cover the payments, they discovered that Parks Director Terri Arnold had given the wrong excess levy amount to the county in early 2010 when the amount was set for tax collections.

Arnold told parks commissioners at their meeting Wednesday that the district would still be able to collect the money.

“It is resolved, and we can get that money back,” Arnold said.

Parks commissioners said the lack of sufficient funds in the bond account should have been caught, however.

“I’m wondering how no one noticed that,” said Parks Commissioner Linda Kast.

“I’m just wondering why somebody didn’t think, ‘Hey, in December we’ve got to make a huge principal payment as well an interest payment on the debt service, and there’s only 30 grand in the account,’” she said.

Commissioners asked why the problem wasn’t noticed during the monthly reconciliation of the district’s books.

“It’s illogical to me, from an accounting basis, that you don’t track all of those to make sure that they all balance at the end of the month,” Kast told staff.

“There should have been extra money that wasn’t spent on bond projects that was allocated for the debt service,” she said.

Peggy Hockett, the district’s office manager, was not at Wednesday’s meeting to answer commissioners’ questions on the tracking of bond finances.

“I can’t defend or deny Peggy. We know her work is impeccable,” Arnold said.

“That’s not impeccable,” Kast replied.

Parks commissioners asked for a full accounting of all the bond expenditures.

“I would like to see the bond funds reconciled against Island County’s records, all the way through from July of 2008, when the $1.6 million was moved in there,” Kast said.

Other commissioners agreed.

“I think it’s a great idea. Start from 2008 and just walk through it,” said Parks Commissioner Matt Simms.

District officials put off a decision on when and how to increase the district’s property tax levy to cover the amount that should have been included in this year’s taxes.

Arnold had asked the county for an excess levy of $163,165, instead of the correct amount of $241,951, which resulted in an underpayment of $78,785 to the district.

The parks district has up to three years to collect money from a levy mistake.

Officials estimate that property owners face a $7 increase for one year in property taxes (assuming a property is assessed at a value of $350,000).