In fairness, the vast majority of them tend to do a necessary job that is also one of the most thankless ones on the planet.
No one really looks forward to seeing the tax assessor’s idea of how much your property is worth or the bill that usually comes soon afterward!
I’ll admit that I was rather surprised I’d not seen the tax bills from four parcels of mineral rights in Saline County IL (that’s in the southern bit of the state toward the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers…look for Harrisburg and you’ll be dead centre in the county!) when they usually arrive in September or early October.
So armed with some questions and noticing a typo in the address for one of them, I figured I’d ring them up and see if I could get everything properly sorted.
I started with the assessor to correct the typo (“ROCK” rather than “ROXK”) in the street name but I’m guessing she might have misunderstood what I was after and sent me over to the tax collector in a different office who was somewhat surprised that the assessor had done so.
The kind lady in the collector’s office was able to solve that mystery of why the tax bills were so late this year and it was due to some weirdness that occurred up in Springfield where many of the counties in the southern part of the state were delayed in getting whatever they needed from upon high to roll out their tax bills.
Ah, Springfield. They do move in a mysterious way like unto the Lord.
I thought my friend in the collector’s office was going to drop the phone when I made that observation that seemed to genuinely amuse her.
She was able to make quick work of the other questions I had.
Saline County’s tax bills will actually let you pay half of them in one month and the other half the next month but the way the bill itself looks, it looked like they would allow you to pay the whole amount when the second installment was due.
Normally I’ve never had to worry about this as I’d pay off the full amount on the portal and just be done with it but this year, Mama Dollar and Papa Dollar don’t seem to be doing as great a job coming up with a whole lot of children between them and so I might well have to split the payments this year.
Unfortunately, there was a bit of important language on the back of the paper payment coupon that says you can actually do that but you’re going to get nailed with penalties and interest unless you either pay it all as I have been doing or pay the installments
So much for that clever idea. Bummer.
And all the while she was rather patient and really professional with someone from that “other Raleigh” (there’s actually a Raleigh in Saline County about halfway between Harrisburg and Galatia…my grandmother and at least one aunt taught school in an one-room schoolhouse in Raleigh IL).
Administration of the tax laws doesn’t have to be painful or evil.
I accept that for some agencies it’s a perk of a rather thankless job but Saline County is doing wonderful at showing how the job ought to be done.
Even when I was actually in Harrisburg IL last year when the tax bills had dropped, I’ve got to admit that the queue that was waiting at the tax collector’s office in the main county building really didn’t seem to be all that fussed or have their noses out of joint about those bills.
And when you’re talking about a county where the primary industries are farming and mining, there’s certainly plenty amongst that citizenry who certainly could pull off the axes and pitchforks thing. 😉
She transferred me back to the assessor’s to make another try at correcting the address she couldn’t in her system but as it was the end of the day, it had to wait until this afternoon.
One quick call to the same nice lady that had transferred me to the collector’s office yesterday fixed the typo in no time flat.
Good on ya, Saline County.
Good on ya! 🙂