ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. - Some Arapahoe County residents are raising red flags about their property tax bills, not necessarily about the price they're set to pay, but how the bills are being delivered.
One Denver7 viewer, Dennis Spurrier, emailed the newsroom saying he was concerned that his tax information was not in an envelope.
"Statements all my life have come in 'SEALED ENVELOPES,' privacy, security, not a good idea... POSTCARD!" he wrote.
Denver7 met with Spurrier who said he's never seen a postcard version of the property tax reminder before.
"I've owned five houses, never have I got that," he said.
The details in plain sight, hit too close to home for him.
"There's my name, everything's right there. How much I pay and that's nobody's business," Spurrier said, "I've got 11 debit and credit cards that have been compromised in the last year. I don't need any more of my information out there."
Arapahoe County Treasurer, Michael Westerberg, said if a property owner pays their mortgage through a lender, they've been receiving similar postcards since 2020. This is the first year that all property owners received postcard notices.
"Is the information on the postcards private information?" Denver7's Danielle Kreutter asked Westerberg.
"No, there's nothing on the postcards. It's not absolutely publicly available," said Westerberg who went on to say, "because we maintain that information, we have to make it publicly available to people. It's super valuable if you're buying a house, if you're doing so many things in Arapahoe County, you want to know that information, and so it has a lot of purpose being public."
The postcards are expected to save the Treasurer's Office tens of thousands of dollars per year compared to the paper bills in envelopes.
"The online payments and the postcards are the most efficient, most cost effective way to actually do that, and they're a lot more secure than paper checks, frankly," he said.
Westerberg said the Treasurers office has been getting a lot of feedback for various reasons regarding the new postcards.
"We totally take people's concerns seriously, and we've had a ton of people reach out to us, and it's okay. Thanks for everybody for reaching out," he said.
He notes that feedback will be taken into consideration and it is possible changes could be made for next year's notices.
Watch below as Westerberg walks through how property owners can pay their bills online
