When the conservancy assessment record is placed on file in the office of the conservancy district, notice by publication shall be given to property owners and public corporations assessed that they may pay their assessments. Any owner of real property or public corporation assessed for the execution of the official plan under this chapter may pay the assessment to the treasurer of the conservancy district within thirty days from the time the assessment is placed on file in the office of the district, and the amount to be so paid shall be ninety per cent of the full principal amount of the assessment exclusive of any amount added to it to meet interest. When the assessment has been paid, the secretary of the conservancy district shall enter upon the assessment record opposite each item for which payment is made, the amount paid and the words "paid in full," and the assessment shall be deemed satisfied. The payment of the assessment does not relieve the landowner or public corporation from the necessity for the payment of a maintenance assessment or from payment of any further assessment that may be necessary as provided in this chapter. Any property owner or public corporation failing to pay assessments in full as provided for in this section shall be deemed to have consented to the issuance of bonds as provided for under this chapter and to payment of interest on them. If any assessment is twenty-five dollars or less, or whenever the unpaid balance of any assessment is twenty-five dollars or less, the assessment or balance shall be paid in full, and not in installments, at the time the first or next installment would otherwise become due and payable.

After the expiration of the period of thirty days within which the property owners and public corporations may pay their respective assessments, as limited in this section, the treasurer of the conservancy district shall certify to the board of directors of the conservancy district the aggregate of the amount so paid, and the board then shall pass and spread upon its records a resolution in which shall be stated the total amount of the assessment and the amount of it paid. The board shall, in the same resolution, apportion the total of the unpaid assessments into annual installments and provide for the collection of interest upon the unpaid installments. Thereafter, it may order the issuance of bonds in an amount not exceeding ninety per cent of the unpaid assessment in anticipation of the collection of the installments. The residue of the assessment so levied, not less than ten per cent, shall constitute a contingent account to protect the bonds from casual default, and any part of it in excess of the sum of the next two installments of semiannual interest and ten per cent of the next installment of maturing bond principal, if not needed for this purpose, may be used for the purchase and retirement of bonds of the district at not to exceed par and accrued interest or for the reduction of the rate of assessment in succeeding years.

Effective Date: 09-21-2000 .