We have pretty much settled in and are getting used to functioning in the new space. This is the time we begin to gear up for the upcoming tax season. Statement forms, envelopes, receipt paper, and a dozen other supplies have to be ordered now in time to have them ready to go.
We now have a payment drop box up on the west side of the building, complete with envelopes for your convenience. This one is easy to find, and easy to use. Don’t forget the website, www.bryan.okcountytreasurers.com, where you can check taxes, search the tax rolls for information in various ways, and pay your taxes online when the time comes.
You can even follow a link to a great game called County Works, where you get to help run a county. The link takes you to a website called iCivics, and if I remember correctly, Sandra Day O’Connor has started this site as a way of getting information about all levels of government and civics out to our population. Try it out, and see what is involved in county government, or one of the other levels.
Speaking of paying taxes online—most often people think of using their credit card to do this. That’s great, but there is a third-party fee of 2.50% that goes to the company that processes these for us. It is not as well known or publicized that you can also do an e-check, where the money is debited from your bank account, for a flat fee of $1.50.
Your account information is not maintained here in my office, but is routed through the credit card processing company known as Federal Payments, a division of ACH Direct.
No one in my office sees your bank account information or your credit card information, and no report prints it out. Federal Payments, like all processing companies, goes to great lengths to insure the safety of your information. We are in the process of issuing tax warrants to the sheriff’s office in an attempt to collect delinquent personal property taxes, some of which have been on the tax rolls for years.
I believe this is only fair to those of you who pay your taxes. I am serious about getting these collected, because this is delinquent debt, monies which were counted on for budgets in past years, and should have been paid. I hope you aren’t one who gets a letter, but if you do I urge you to please call my office at once to get things straightened out.
Please remember: If you have a question or problem with your taxes, call, email us or come by. I want you to understand where your money goes, and what it is used for. This is your county, your money, and we work for you.
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