Processing of some Santa Fe County tax payments delayed

Nov. 29—About a couple of hundred Santa Fe County residents who paid their property taxes by mailing checks have experienced delays with their payments being processed.

The delays are due to a new company processing the payments and short staffing at local post offices, county Treasurer Jennifer Manzanares told The New Mexican in an interview Wednesday.

The Treasurer's Office sent out property tax bills by Oct. 31, which were due back by Nov. 10. Taxpayers who have not paid become delinquent Dec. 12 — but staff will not assess a penalty on payments postmarked before that date, Manzanares said.

The delays affected about 100 to 300 taxpayers, Manzanares estimated.

Some delays stemmed from the switch to a new company processing the payments. The company is still becoming familiar with a few ins-and-outs of the procedure, Manzanares said.

The company, Deluxe, mistakenly labeled some payments as what are known as "exceptions" — such as when a resident sends in one check to cover tax payments for multiple properties — and unnecessarily sent those checks to the Treasurer's Office to address rather than processing them immediately, she said.

The Treasurer's Office scheduled a meeting with Deluxe on Thursday to streamline that process. In the meantime, office staff were on track Wednesday to finish processing all the payments that were delayed for this reason, Manzanares said.

Staff shortages at local U.S. Postal Service facilities also have caused delays, Manzanares said. Postal Service employees must forward taxpayers' checks to a lockbox directly accessible by the bank, which processes the bulk of tax payments sent through the mail.

Manzanares visited a post office Monday and said a staff member was overwhelmed with the task of forwarding tax payments. The Treasurer's Office has been in "daily contact" with the Postal Service, which has shifted staff among its locations to address the issue, she added.

U.S. Postal Service spokesman Rod Spurgeon said in an email the Santa Fe team is "both fully staffed and well positioned for holiday volume levels.

"All mail is delivered daily and operations are running well," Spurgeon said. People may ask about the status of trackable mail at 1-800-ASK-USPS, he added.

Manzanares urged patience as the Treasurer's Office continues to work through payments.

"It's just a daily, daily, daily push," she said.