When Government Experience and Political Promises Don't Line Up

I received the "Personal Property Consolidated Tax Bill" from Montgomery County, Maryland yesterday.

Apparently, I owe a few dollars.

Here's where things get interesting.

• It came in the mail
• It's paper
• There's a return envelope in and I need to send in a check.
• There is no website to go to and make the payment
• The envelope is being sent to a PO Box in Philadelphia

Now, if you go to the County Executive's (Marc Elrich) website, you see statements such as:

"A Growing Economy" and "A More Affordable and Welcoming County."

I guess my question for our County Executive would be:

If you really want a better economy, why are you so comfortable with 

• wasting the taxpayer dollars on the back-end processing associated with check deposits?
• wasting the time of the taxpayer who needs to write a check, put on a stamp, and mail it
• sending the payments out of state? If you are going to do that, may as well offshore it to make it cheaper

It's 2019. The idea that I can't pay this tax on a website is just downright offensive.

Plus, I'd love to understand how these paper-based, ineffective, costly processes contribute to a growing, more affordable county?

(Updated: Thanks to Ari for pointing out that it is possible to pay online. I admit, I didn't check. I still maintain that the URL should be on the paper bill and that, in reality, there shouldn't be a paper bill in the first place.)