MADERA COUNTY — Madera County Treasurer-Tax Collector Tracy Kennedy reports that over $86 million in property tax payments were collected and posted following the Dec. 10 property tax deadline.
All payments were posted and balanced by Friday, Dec. 15.
“That’s amazing,” says Kennedy, “given that we had an extra day for taxpayers to make their payments on Monday, December 11; to have them all posted and balanced by Friday, December 15, is great. I’m so proud of my staff for handling both the heavy volume and the new processes.”
From the Monday after Thanksgiving, until Dec. 11, the office says they had heavy walk-in traffic and the telephones were ringing constantly.
“To answer that volume of phone calls and wait on literally hundreds of taxpayers day after day, and never skip a beat, now that’s customer service at its best,” says Kennedy. “I’m really humbled at how well they all worked together.”
Kennedy reports that as typically happens, most of the payments – around 69 percent, or over 38,000 parcels – were made by mail. Another 20 percent are paid through the property owner’s mortgage company, and the balance is paid with credit cards, E-checks, online bank checks or in-office counter transactions.
“Most payments were for the first installment, but almost 13,000 taxpayers paid both installments,” says Kennedy, who continues to encourage taxpayers to pay by E-check — something that can be done with no added “convenience fee.” This year, nearly 1,000 people chose the E-check method of payment.
The next tax deadline is Apr. 10. All payments must be postmarked by that date to avoid penalties.
This week over 4,000 reminder notices were sent out to those taxpayers that may have overlooked their December tax payments.
Taxpayers can verify that their payments were posted to their account on the treasurer’s website at www.madera-county.com/treasurer. Just log in and follow the prompts for “Paying your taxes” and your entire tax bill will be revealed together with your payment status.
