BROWNSVILLE — Doing business with the Cameron County Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office doesn’t need to involve long lines.
In fact, department head Tony Yzaguirre Jr. said, customers who use the revamped drive-thru windows can be on their way in as little as three minutes.
The drive-thru area, which has an entrance on the 300 block of East 8th Street, reopened March 19 after week-long renovations.
Yzaguirre closed the lanes for one week starting March 12 to repave and stripe the lanes and parking spaces to more efficiently direct traffic. The overhaul also included improvements made to the small office that houses three county employees serving drive-thru customers.
Yzaguirre said construction cost about $50,000.
“It’s not that we don’t want you in our lobby,” he said. “We had a huge expense in renovating the drive-through windows and the office, so we want people to take advantage of the services.”
Yzaguirre said the number of drive-thru windows increased from three to five in November when the Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office moved from the Cameron County Courthouse to its new location 835 E. Levee St.
However, there were no stripes directing drivers into lanes. Customers idled in the main entrance and formed a single line while waiting for a teller, he said, which caused traffic to back up onto the road.
“It was a mess,” Yzaguirre said. “It was so congested, it was blocking 8th Street.”
Yzaguirre said the most common service provided at the drive-thru lanes is vehicle registration renewals, which take about three minutes if customers have their inspection report, photo ID and insurance card ready. Property tax collection takes about five minutes. Others are issuing disabled placards, registration sticker replacements and duplicate tax receipts.
Services like title transfers are too complex to be done in the drive-thru and must be handled inside the Levee Building.
Yzaguirre said the data shows the drive-thru windows are meeting their goal of getting customers’ business done quickly and freeing up space in the lobby.
During January and February, the Tax Assessor-Collector’s Office collected about $3.1 million in property taxes across 2,540 transactions at its drive-thru windows. That’s quadruple the dollar amount drive-thru employees collected during the same period in 2017, when they were still located at the Cameron County Courthouse.
“It’s working,” he said of the drive-thru revamp. “We like it, we’re proud of it and we want people to use it.”
