Treasurer Eichenberg told the Board of Finance Nov. 18 that older property-tax delinquencies risk being removed from the tax roll under state law and that the county loses potential interest income when those amounts are no longer collectible. "By state statute, they're presumed paid after 10 years of delinquency," Eichenberg said, presenting the issue to the board.

Eichenberg said some 2015 delinquencies had effectively fallen off the roll under that presumption and recommended exploring a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the state property tax division so county staff could assist with delinquent searches, title work and heir-identification to speed processing while preserving an independent adjudicative role. "We still wanna keep it separate because we don't wanna be the judge and the jury," he said.

He provided tax-sale context: in March 2025 the property tax division scheduled about 120 properties for tax sale; roughly 100 taxpayers paid before sale and about 20 were auctioned, and a future sale was planned for Dec. 18, 2025. Eichenberg said the county knows of more than 1,200 delinquent properties this calendar year and cited 874 properties delinquent five years. He said lowering minimum auction bids on some properties could increase the chance they return to the tax roll in future years.

The treasurer framed the collection proposal as a way to recover revenue (and interest income) the county could otherwise have earned. He also said the county's property tax division has limited staff capacity (noting Bernalillo County had only one contract employee in the property tax division) and suggested that in-house support from county departments that already inspect or tag nuisance properties could accelerate the process.

The transcript contained some unclear numeric and formatting items (for example, the transcript text around the count of 2015 parcels and a dollar figure were garbled); those figures were not relied on as precise dollar or parcel counts in this article. The core, verifiable claims in the meeting were: the statutory 10-year presumption was cited; the treasurer reported prior tax-sale outcomes (120 scheduled, ~100 paid, 20 auctioned) and an identified backlog of more than 1,200 delinquent parcels; and the treasurer proposed an MOU to speed up processes, not a formal county policy change.

No formal motion or vote on changes to property-tax collection processes was taken during the meeting; the discussion was presented for the board's consideration and information.