CLAYTON — After weeks of delay, ӣƵ County officials now expect by the end of next week to finish processing most mailed-in property tax payments postmarked by the Dec. 31 deadline.
Tony Smee, the county revenue director, said finishing by next Saturday is the “worst-case scenario” and that it’s more likely the processing will wind up before then.
Smee said the processing slowdown has been due equally to mail delivery delays by the U.S. Postal Service over the past two months and a staffing shortage in the county collector’s office.
“We had a double whammy of not enough staff...and mail delivery that’s just extremely unpredictable,” he said.
For example, he said, one day in December the office received about 1,500 payments in the mail and the next day got 16,000. That makes it difficult to efficiently handle the payments, he said.
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The situation was exacerbated, he said, by the snow and ice that hit the metro area Jan. 5. “After the weather, we didn’t get hardly any mail for two weeks,” he said.
In contrast, he said, the county had received about 80,000 mailed payments between Christmas and Jan. 3.
Postal Service officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Smee estimated that when all is said and done, the county would process about 250,000 pieces of mail with payments. That includes checks for both real estate and personal property taxes.
The delay hasn’t affected taxpayers who paid online or in person, nor homeowners whose payments are sent electronically to the county from mortgage escrow accounts.
Officials estimated Thursday they still had 15,000 to 20,000 pieces of mail with payments yet to be processed, down from about 35,000 at the beginning of this week.
Smee said he believed that the county had now received most mailed payments postmarked before the end of the year.
Mark Devore, the collector of revenue, said in most years, all mail payments postmarked in December have arrived by January 8.
The collector’s office has 24 vacancies out of 50 positions. Smee said it’s been difficult to hire people because salary scales are below what workers could get in the private sector. Officials have been able to bring in some temporary workers but not enough.
Councilman Mark Harder, R-Ballwin, said he’s gotten numerous calls from constituents wondering why their checks haven’t been processed yet. “This year it’s just off the charts,” he said.
He said he would ask the Postal Service to be represented at a council meeting on the issue next week.
The county won’t impose penalties or interest on accounts with payments postmarked by Dec. 31. Such fees might appear online but will be reversed when payments are applied.
Trish Vincent, the state revenue director, said none of the state’s 113 other counties (or ӣƵ city) have reported similar problems this year.
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