People who own property in Arkansas must pay their property taxes by Oct. 15 -- Thursday -- or pay a 10 percent late fee.
Property taxes are billed sometime in the spring, with exact dates depending on a person's county. But statewide, property taxes are due Oct. 15 each year.
The Pulaski County treasurer/collector's office billed property owners for $460 million this year. That's an increase of $13 million from last year, mostly because of new construction and increases in the portion of taxes that can be collected from real estate.
Under state law, increases on taxes are limited in a given year -- 5 percent on real estate and 10 percent on personal property -- regardless of the property's assessed value.
As of Thursday, Pulaski County had already collected $332 million, about 72 percent of what it seeks to. The county usually collects about 97 percent of what it bills by the end of each year.
If those taxes are fully collected, two-thirds of that revenue -- $307 million -- will go to the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts, and about $62.8 million will go to the general funds for the county and cities.
About $15.5 million will go to the Central Arkansas Library System and other libraries, and $20 million will go to road funds for the county and cities. About $4.2 million will be funneled to Arkansas Children's Hospital through Pulaski County. Little Rock, North Little Rock and Maumelle will receive $10.7 million for police and fire workers' pensions.
Officials hope electronic outreach will help them collect more taxes on time.
Electronic billing is cheaper for counties than paper billing, which requires postage. The treasurer's office budgeted $200,000 for postage this year, about half of which is saved for sending delinquent bills via certified mail.
But paying online means a $3 or $5 surcharge for a taxpayer, depending on how much the bill is. The surcharge goes to the company operating the electronic payment software, not to the county or the state.
By Thursday afternoon, Pulaski County had collected $2.1 million more in property taxes via electronic payments than at that point the year before, Treasurer/Collector Debra Buckner said.
More reminders are sent out when a person signs up for an electronic bill, and Chief Deputy Treasurer Bentley Hovis said payments spike after each reminder is sent out.
"That's really been hugely successful," he said.
Additional advertising by the state of Arkansas has targeted property owners on social media.
At Thursday night's Pulaski County Quorum Court Budget Committee meeting, Justice of the Peace Tyler Denton, D-Little Rock, said he paid his property taxes after seeing a Facebook ad reminding him. He clicked and paid right away.
"I was able to pay my real estate taxes through Facebook, basically," he said, reminding other budget committee members to pay their property taxes.
The county also added new electronic kiosks at two state revenue offices, where people can pay their property taxes, have their property assessed and renew their vehicle tags.
One of the kiosks is at a revenue office in Maumelle that has never had a county treasurer's office employee there to collect tax payments.
Hovis said the two new kiosks are receiving about eight to 10 payments per day.
Metro on 10/12/2015