- Boone County Fiscal Court approved shifting occupational tax lockbox services from Baltimore to locally based Heritage Bank in Burlington.
- Officials say the move will cut costs, improve processing efficiency, and address taxpayer concerns about mailing payments 500 miles away.
- Heritage Bank submitted the lowest bid and already handles other county-level tax transactions.
Boone County business owners will no longer have to ship their occupational license tax payments off to Baltimore.
On Nov. 18, Boone County Fiscal Court approved an agreement with Heritage Bank to return lockbox services to a Boone County financial institution. Currently, when it’s time for Boone County business owners to mail their occupational license tax payments, they must send them to a P.O. box in Baltimore, Maryland – approximately 500 miles away.
Naturally, this raised some questions from community members, Boone County Judge/Executive Gary Moore said. This scenario prompted Boone County’s financial department to seek a closer option, rather than sending payments to a distant, out-of-area processing location.
“We’re gonna have a local address for our lockbox right here in Burlington,” Moore said. “And we heard from several taxpayers back then about, ‘why are we sending our payments to Baltimore?’ So I like every aspect of it: the local bank, the local address, and saving us money. “
Lisa Goetz, Boone County’s treasurer, said that her team is seeking ways to boost cost efficiency and increase taxpayer convenience. Finding a local financial institution to manage payments would accomplish that.
Boone County issued a Request for Proposal, or RFP, for lockbox services on Oct. 16. The RFP states that the aim of this project is to adopt a service that reduces processing times, improves transparency, and supports Boone County’s broader financial management and modernization goals.
“We are looking for ways to utilize our current software and find more efficiencies, knowing customer service for taxpayers is most important,” Goetz said.
A total of four banks submitted proposals to the county. The selection committee ultimately selected Heritage Bank due to its local presence and for its low bid of about $62,000.
Heritage Bank is a Florence-based financial institution with 19 domestic branches across Northern Kentucky and Greater Cincinnati. Heritage Bank already has a branch located in Burlington at 1818 Old Florence Pike. The bank is already integrated into county-level tax transactions, with Boone County residents able to conduct in-person property tax payments at Heritage Bank locations.
Goetz mentioned that there is a P.O. box where individuals can send their payments and supporting documents. The lockbox service — Heritage — then collects these items from the P.O. box and begins processing them.
Moore explained that historically, citizens would submit occupational and net profit tax payments to a lockbox maintained by a local bank, such as Boone State Bank.
Over the years, the lockbox was managed by various statewide financial institutions, Moore explained, as these banks were acquired and merged into larger banks. At one point, the lockbox was managed by Bank of Kentucky, which was later acquired by BB&T in 2014. BB&T subsequently merged with Atlanta-based SunTrust in 2019 to form Truist Financial Corporation. Since the banks were acquired, the service was relocated across state lines.
“Here you have local Boone County taxpayers submitting their lockbox payments to an address in Baltimore, and we are Boone County,” Moore said.