White County Treasurer Pam Armstrong says Property Tax Bills are going out late and her office is taking steps to lessen the burden on taxpayers. Armstrong says due to Supervisor of Assessments Terry Abell’s illness, the Assessor’s office just last week sent property tax information to the state of Illinois. That’s about 3 months behind schedule according to the Treasurer. The state could have that information for up to six weeks before they send it on to the County Clerk’s office where it will remain for maybe 3 to 4 weeks. From the County Clerk’s office, the bills cross the corridor over to the Treasurer’s office where Armstrong and staff will spend about a week balancing and making final inspections. The actual property tax bills are then sent to the mail delivery service which will take about 4 days Armstrong estimates before first installments begin arriving in mailboxes of residents.
Because of the delay, Armstrong says worst case scenario, the 1st installment will end up being due November 15th, about 2 months later than normal. Because she says she understands folks are financially strapped in December as is, if the worst case scenario materializes, she’ll make the 2nd installment not due until January 15th.
If you want to stay on your schedule however, and estimate your payment to be about the same as last year, Armstrong says that she is accepting pre payments. If you do decide to make a prepayment not knowing for sure what you’ll owe, the payments you make will be evenly distributed between the 1st and 2nd installment. Armstrong says her office has already received more than $35,000 in pre payments.
