Monterey County tax collector brings changes to how property taxes are collected.

Property tax checks in Monterey County are no longer headed for Salinas. For the first time when last month’s Dec. 10 deadline rolled along, all property owners who paid by check using a provided envelope sent their payments to a contractor in Whittier. The change was phased in over a year-and-a-half, after the check processing equipment at county headquarters was becoming too old to use and too expensive to replace, says County of Monterey Tax Collector and Treasurer Mary Zeeb. A contractor was determined to be more cost-efficient.

The new address took some taxpayers by surprise, especially when some noticed their checks weren’t clearing for weeks after sending them to Whittier. Zeeb calls what happened to those payments “isolated,” compared to the over 150,000 checks that are processed. “We’re talking handfuls,” she says. The contractor, RT Lawrence Corporation, offers an automated “payment processing lockbox service” that processes the checks and deposits them directly into a county bank account. It’s estimated to cost approximately $45,000-$50,000 this year.

Besides the new process for accepting checks, Zeeb says that in October, she instituted a new way to pay in monthly installments with a service at no cost to the county. The company Easy Smart Pay receives monthly payments through users’ bank accounts, credit or debit cards, and then pays the county in April and December when taxes are due. The company holds the money it collects from taxpayers in an account and uses it to make liquid investments following state regulations, according to the ESP website. There is a 1.99-percent fee for using a credit card, but e-checks cost the user nothing.

“I try to give taxpayers as many options as I can, especially if it doesn’t cost the county any money,” Zeeb says. Property taxes can also be paid by credit card or e-check over the phone or online at co.ca.us/taxcollector, small fees do apply depending on the method.