1 July—Property owners in the town and borough of Litchfield and many—perhaps most—other Connecticut municipalities probably—or possibly, given the legendary reliability of the USPS—will have received their property tax bills today. Only today. Not earlier. By statute, municipal taxes are due on 1 July—today—even though there’s no mandatory usurious late penalty if they’re paid by 1 August.

Also by statute, property taxes must be paid even if taxpayers haven’t received the bills and don’t know how much they’re supposed to pay. That’s typical of Connecticut’s often thoughtless and downright stupid General Statutes. Contacting local tax collectors is a possibility, to be sure; but they’re often not available; and their web pages are no better.

Assuming municipal budgets are passed in a timely manner, mill rates (not mil rates, as some people who should know better write) are usually set by finance boards over a month before the taxes are due. If budgets are delayed for any reason, interim or provisional taxes are still due on time.

So the question is, why the hell can’t tax collectors get the tax bills out on time? Fifty years ago they did. At least Litchfield’s town tax collector did. Working with only one part-time assistant at tax time, the wonderful old lady—and Isabel Rylander was a lady—was sure to get property tax bills mailed out by the middle of June, at least two weeks before the taxes were due.

Mrs. Rylander and her tax-time assistant did it with an old-fashioned adding machine with a big handle, an old-fashioned typewriter, and an old-fashioned wet sponge to moisten old-fashioned postage stamps and envelope flaps. That was then.

Now virtually everything is computerized to facilitate tax bill preparation for tax collectors. But even with tax-time temporary assistants in addition to full-timers, tax collectors can’t get the bills out on time.

Not that it matters, but it’s absolutely shameful and there’s no excusing it . . .