Virus sweeps through government center, building closes

WADESBORO — Since Dec. 16 the Anson County Government Building has been closed to the public due to the amount of positive COVID-19 cases within the building — and it will remain closed until further notice — causing residents to question whether important services are being provided.

The building, including tax portion of the government center and the DMV is predicted to be closed for at least another week, according to the county manager Barron Monroe. There have been about eight employees who have contracted the virus.

This closure brings up an issue of whether or not people can still pay their property taxes or if tax payments are being processed. The amount of staff working in the building has been significantly reduced, causing a delay in processing transactions.

“Obviously the sick employees are not allowed to come back in the building,” Monroe said. “The employees that are here are ones that do not have direct impact with the public: finance, HR, IT.”

A major push for these transactions was happening by the last day of the year for residents to receive some tax exemption in the year 2020. The concern over making payments for your taxes is the Jan. 6 deadline. If taxes are not paid by this date, it will be considered late and will accrue interest. Monroe explained that many people do not pay their taxes until right before the final deadline in January which is why this closing of the government center has become an inconvenience for residents.

“Taxes are actually due Sept. 1,” he explained. “We sent out the bills in August of 2020. The bills become due Sept. 1. They do not become delinquent … until Jan. 6.”

Monroe said there is no need for concern about the land transactions or the tax deadline. The employees and government center has accommodated every situation that has come up, according to the county manager.

“If a deed needs to be recorded, we can schedule an appointment,” Monroe said. “We are not opening that up to the public because of the potential for contagion or spread of the disease. But if someone needs to record a deed, they can make a phone call and we can schedule that for them.”

Anson’s government has been transitioning towards a new online system for people to pay taxes or bills online. This is currently delayed because of COVID-19. But even with this delay in online payments, residents can still drop off checks in the drop-box.

“The receipts will be mailed out when we get everyone back healthy and able to process some of these things,” Monroe said. “But we, right now, are only taking (payments) by either mail or drop-box.”

The strict deadline of Jan. 6 will not change, according to Monroe. The local government does not have the power to change the date as it is a state deadline.

“Bills have been out since August,” Monroe said. “This is not an emergency, it is an inconvenience. What is an emergency is the public health condition of our employees, which I take very seriously, and on the citizen side I take that very seriously as well. Closing the government center is not to make it difficult or to try to add delinquent fees to people.”

The top priority is to keep not only the government employees safe and healthy, but the rest of the county.

“COVID-19 is real. If people haven’t paid attention to this in over the last nine months, I don’t know where we’ve been,” Monroe said. “We’ve suffered a great deal in this organization recently.”

The government center unfortunately lost Joe Dutton, the tax collector, to COVID-19 on Christmas Day.

Monroe does not want to lose anymore employees to this virus.

“We will we have in the future online bill pay for everyone,” Monroe said. “We’ll have the current situation setup downstairs with the drop-box. We’ll have a lot of ease over the next year taking place to hopefully enhance our technology to make it safe for everyone. Right now we are stuck in a transition.”