If you’re like us, you got your excise tax bills in the mail this week. How many envelopes arrived in your mailbox? Two? Three? Four? We got two, one for each car we own. My ever-thrifty husband wondered why the bills weren’t mailed in the same envelope. The Board of Selectmen and Advisory Committee wondered the same thing.
At recent meetings Town Treasurer Brian Ballantine explained it was a mistake. The town used an outsourcer to do the mailing. Ballantine said he assumed the outsourcer would combine the mailings for each household, but they didn’t. He assured the selectmen and Advisory Committee members it wouldn’t happen again next year.
The good news is, Ballantine said residents can mail back all their payments in a single envelope with a single check. Or save yourself the postage entirely and pay your bills online.
In other postal news, Town Administrator Jean Kitchen told the Advisory Committee on Monday that the town will start combining water and property tax bills into a single mailing to save money. When asked whether the town could let people opt out of paper mailings in favor of electronic notification, Kitchen explained state code mandates paper mailing for water and tax bills. How progressive.
