NEW BOSTON, Texas - Getting car tags renewed two months ago in Bowie County at both the Tax Assessor-Collector's New Boston Courthouse office and its Texarkana office was a challenging hurry up and wait experience.
The lines are a little shorter now.
Back in March and April, Tax Assessor-Collector Chief Deputy Deborah Lann said a variety of circumstances led to a high business volume at both offices.
The business backlog occurred in part because of a couple of temporary Texas State Vehicle Registration computer systems shut down, along with some New Boston office Internet-related problems.
Besides these temporary technical shutdowns, residential income tax refunds along with economic impact stimulus check mail-outs provided blessings that inadvertently compounded the county's tax offices' workloads. This business surplus included automobile dealerships having to file their vehicle sales paperwork involving vehicle registration and titles with the county's tax offices.
Besides having the added vehicle registration and car title workload and the computer breakdowns, as of April 14, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott lifted a vehicle registration renewal waver that he implemented on Texas residents' cars a year ago owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bowie County Tax Assessor-Collector Josh Davis said recently that with the county having about 18,000 vehicles needing registration renewals, it seemed like almost half that number showed up to both the New Boston and Texarkana offices for car tag renewals near April 14.
However, as of this past Friday Lann said car tag renewals, state-wide computer overload related shutdowns and local Internet technology problems have all subsided.
Nevertheless, Lann said that local purchases of cars, boats, trailers motorcycles, mobile homes, all-terrain vehicles, recreational vehicles and campers haven't subsided, hence still bringing in steady business to both the Texarkana and New Boston tax offices.
"There's still at least two weeks of surplus dealership car title and registration paperwork that still needs to be finished, but we're working on it," she said.