County approves amendment

The Henderson County Commissioners Court approved a budget amendment Tuesday which allows the Tax Assessor/Collector’s Office to pay an outside company to handle the annual mailing of tax statements.

Contracting with Laser Printers and Mailing Services of San Antonio will lower the cost to the office from $63,000 to $43,000. The company will be charging just about 38 cents per parcel to provide the service.

Anita Smith of the Tax Office said the employees spend about two weeks of intense labor getting the statements ready-to-mail each year. Much of that work has to be done after business hours, in addition to their regular duties. The result is 24-hour days, feeding information into the printer.

“Basically what they (the tax office) did, was to look at every cost associated with sending these statements out, other then the fixed cost of labor,” County Judge Richard Sanders said.

The tax office spends a considerable amount of overtime dollars each year during the statement-mailing period

“They typically spend $6,000 in overtime every year, folding these documents, putting them in a document, and sending them out,” Sanders said. “You’ll be saving that $6,000, plus the postage, the cost of the paper and the cost of the printing.”

In other action, Commissioners chose Margaret Louis Bouman of Poynor to serve an unexpired term on the Emergency Services District 3 Board. She replaces Ken Presley, who has moved from the area.

Commissioners also agreed to accept Sportsman Drive in Sportsman Paradise subdivision in Precinct 3, into the county road maintenance program. The Court also accepted a check for $10,000 from the subdivision to repair the road.

Commissioners authorized payment of bills in the amount of $187,707.