Putnam: Slow mail draws late Lansing property tax fee

LANSING - It’s just 2.2 miles between Bill Coté’s Lansing home and Lansing City Hall.

Coté thought he had plenty of time, and I would have to agree with him, to mail his summer property tax payment. He dropped it in the mail on Aug. 27 — four days before the due date.

Despite the scant two-mile distance, it took a full week for his summer property tax payment to travel from his house to the Lansing City Treasurer’s office, Coté said, earning him a $65 late fee. It would have been cheaper to take a cab or Uber, stop for some lunch along the way to City Hall and hand deliver it. Or he could have ridden in style, taking a limo for that amount.

Coté, a retired journalism instructor, paid his penalty this week without a complaint about City Hall. But he is upset about delays that began last year in local mail delivery. Starting in July, first class mail traveled from Lansing to Grand Rapids for processing and back again to Lansing for delivery. Mail once delivered the next day now takes two to three days. It’s part of a controversial cost-cutting effort by the U.S. Postal Service that targeted a Lansing processing facility on Collins Road and 81 others across the country for closure.

“To send it all the way to Grand Rapids…that’s ridiculous,” Coté fumed.

In fact, City Treasurer Tammy Good says the city no longer uses a postmark as evidence of paying your property taxes on time. It must be in her office by the deadline or a late fee is applied.

A note on the city website warns:

“Due to recent changes by the U.S. Postal Service in the handling of Lansing mail, the City of Lansing no longer accepts postmarks for on-time payment.

"All winter 2015 taxes must be in our office or in our drop box on Capitol Ave on or before 5 p.m. Tuesday Feb. 16 to be considered on time. A 3 percent penalty will be added to any remaining balance as of Feb. 16.”

With winter taxes due next week, she’s urging taxpayers to consider other ways to pay:

• Hand deliver at City Hall
• Use Capitol Avenue drop box after hours to avoid parking problems
• Pay at any Comerica bank office
• Sign up for automatic withdrawal from your bank account

Though it seems harsh, Good made the case with me that taxpayers had been fairly warned about the late fees and the policy about postmarks well in advance of applying the late fees.

She didn’t know how many taxpayers like Coté were paying the price for slower mail delivery.

Coté wrote down the day he mailed his check, and remembers seeing his letter carrier pick it up. He was surprised later when he got another bill for the late fee. The treasurer's office reported to him that the check was delivered Sept. 3, a full week after mailing.

That type of delay is unusual, said Sabrina Todd, spokeswoman for the Lansing area postal service. She said the local post office has just come off a very successful holiday season with a large volume of mail delivered on time.

The Collins Road processing facility, that was slated to be closed, is still in operation. Plans to close processing centers such as the Collins Road facility, are on hold indefinitely. Todd said first class mail is still routed to Grand Rapids to be canceled and then back for delivery.

John Greathouse, legislative director for Central Michigan Area Local 300, a unit of the American Postal Workers, said the union is still fighting to keep the Collins Road facility open and there are efforts in Congress to restore faster delivery standards, which would add more pressure to keep the Collins Road facility in operation as a processing facility. He said it is being used as a hub for mail, such as putting it in walking sequence order for the letter carrier.

He said there are ways to push back. Customers such as Coté who experience long delays, should report the slow mail to the Postal Regulatory Commission, New York Ave NW Suite 200, Washington, DC 20268, or file an online complaint  at www.prc.gov/contact. He said mail delivered three days or later after postmark is considered late.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Write to her at 120 E. Lenawee St., Lansing, MI, 48919. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.