To err is human, but it would seem that to be really adept at messing things up, you have to be part of the Otsego County government.

The litany of foul-ups, bumbling and rancor involving the county Board of Representatives and the Otsego Treasurer’s Office has been well-documented over the last year or so.

So, we’ll just hit the highlights.

The board hired an administrator for the county nursing home who had a history of alcoholism.

Despite Edmond Marchi showing up for work drunk at the Manor, according to county officials, and being stopped by police for driving while intoxicated, the county was obliged to give him his job back after a suspension because of fear of a lawsuit.

Along the way, there was an outbreak of Legionnaires disease at the home and at least a temporary loss of between $430,000 and $720,000 because Marchi did not tell accountants to certify a report for the state Health Department.

Then, of course, there was the infamous and inexplicable farce created when the County Board believed it was approving a 2.5 percent property tax levy increase when it really voted for a 22 percent hike.

Members of the board blamed Treasurer Myrna Thayne, and Thayne blamed the board members right back. Things got pretty nasty, and would have been almost humorous except for the fact that taxpayers were the real victims.

After much hemming and hawing and gnashing of teeth about what to do, the county decided to send refunds to everyone who had been overcharged.

Creating and mailing more than 26,000 checks can be expensive, of course, but this being an election year for the board, there was no way it wasn’t getting done.

On Friday, the county announced it was sending out the checks for amounts ranging from three cents to $7,100 and averaging $62.

But, because it’s Otsego County, something was bound to go wrong.

It seems duplicate refund checks were sent to 200 property owners in Middlefield, according to Brian Pokorny, the county’s director of information technologies.

Pokorny is usually an island of competence and class in a sea of county incompetence, and he is to be applauded for bringing the mistake to the public’s attention.

"Our equipment isn’t supposed to be able to make duplicate copies and I don’t know how it happened," he said, "but I take full responsibility for it."

Pokorny willingly taking the bullet is a breath of fresh air in the cover-your-own-back atmosphere in Otsego County government.

Still, it has been a very bad several months for those who have anything to do with governing Otsego County, and this latest snafu doesn’t help.

"To err is human," wrote English poet Alexander Pope, "to forgive divine."

Local residents would probably love to show divine patience with what’s been going on at the county level, but it would help if officials would try to be a little less human.