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GREENSBORO - While the Guilford County Tax Department makes a case for a tax payment method it claims will save money, at least one county commissioner wants to know how.

Guilford residents now mail tax payments to a processing center in Charlotte, rather than a Greensboro or High Point tax office, with options to pay in-person or online.

The new way means less staff time spent on manually processing payments, said tax Director Francis Kinlaw, so tax department staff can do other business.

The tax department also would avoid replacing a $200,000 piece of equipment it uses to process payments.

Before, 23 employees handled mounds of bill payments totaling about 580,000 payments per year, he said. Now, they can spend more time answering phone calls and processing other paperwork.

But if the new payment system saves Guilford County money, asked Commissioner Linda Shaw, then how much is saved?

"If they're going to cut services like this and it's going to benefit us," she said, "I want to know how it's going to save money. And then do we need all those employees?"

The new way, called "lockbox" collection, routes all mailed payments to a Charlotte processing center run by Wachovia, Kinlaw said. Money flows through the system more quickly because automation takes out the wait for a person to open and process payments.

Lockbox collection is not new technology. Many of the state's largest counties and many utility companies handle their bill payments similarly.

Though it's hard to quantify how much money is saved, Kinlaw said the lockbox method also eliminates extra time the staff might spend on weekends processing payments.

He added that a $200,000 machine for that processing needs replacement soon.

"We've had some mechanical problems with it recently," he said of the machine that handles the payments sent to the county. "The machines last about six to eight years."

Shaw wishes she heard about the new plan beforehand. The only formal notification to commissioners came in March through a weekly note from County Manager David McNeill.

The change did not require a separate vote by the board.

Commissioner Paul Gibson said he remembers seeing the note in one of McNeill's reports, adding he also spoke with Kinlaw about the new payment method.

"It's not like Guilford County is doing something strange and unusual," Gibson said. A self-employed businessman, Gibson said he handles bill payments through a lockbox.

"It's quicker," he said.

But Shaw wants more on the new method, perhaps through a presentation to the board. A few other commissioners felt they didn't know about the lockbox method until after it happened, she said.

"It gives the appearance that there's something sneaky about it," Shaw said. "And there may not be. But all the commissioners were not made aware of the change until it happened."

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt@news-record.com