VENTURA : Landowners Line Up to Meet Tax Deadline

The procrastinators were out in force Friday.

From 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., last-minute taxpayers lined up outside the treasurer-tax collector’s office at the Ventura County Government Center to turn in their property tax bills, just meeting the Friday deadline.

“There’s really no good reason why I waited,” said Anthony Pelaccio, a Ventura homeowner. “It’s just procrastination.”

County officials estimated that they had processed about $40 million worth of property tax bills Friday, on top of the $86 million collected earlier in the week.

Staff will work overtime this weekend to make sure that the payments make it to the bank as soon as possible.

Overall, the county expects to collect $244 million in taxes from about 220,000 property owners.

The rush to get the money to the bank stems from the county’s desire to begin collecting interest as soon as possible. For each $1 million deposited, the county earns several hundred dollars per day in interest.

“It starts earning interest as soon as it hits the bank,” said Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector John R. McKinney, wearing a tie imprinted with tiny money bags. “We earn about $35 million in interest each year. It pays a lot of salaries.”

The flood of checks sent in by the December deadline represents the first of two installments of property taxes that cover the period from July 1, 1993, through July 30, 1994.

Another $245 million will be collected by the second installment deadline April 10.