Lehighton School District tax bills should finally be in the hands of the property owners.

District Business Manager Brian Feick said there was a delay again this year even though the school board approved the property tax millage rate on June 8, far ahead of the June 30 deadline."It was no fault of the district or the tax collectors," Feick said. "The printer had them since June 9 but didn't get them back to the collectors until late. I think Mahoning Township just got theirs out on Friday."To try to solve the problem, Feick said he would contact the county and get multiple electronic duplicate files so each tax collector can choose their own printer."Currently, we only get one duplicate so everyone has to use the same printer," Feick said.Last year, tax collectors told the district bills were late going out because the budget, and therefore the millage rate, was approved late in June."This year we didn't really need to worry about what the state was going to do so we passed it earlier, but that won't always be the case," Feick said. "Most districts wait until the last week of June because they want to have a better idea of what the state contribution is going to look like. Next year I think we'll be waiting again."In June, the finance committee invited Sue Hawkins from the Berks County Intermediate Unit to give a presentation on the eTaxTrax software program."Palmerton and 30 other school districts in the eastern part of the state use our program," Hawkins said at the time. "We take care of mailing the bills for the collectors."All of the district tax collectors in attendance, however, said they were happy with their own programs.Feick, however, said switching to the BCIU service would save the district around $6,000 per year."Between the cost of the bill and the cost of postage, we're paying around $1 per bill right now," he said. "My concern is that the collectors are using very old software programs that are not supported anymore, and if something goes wrong, there is no fix for it. For now though, we'll contact the county to see what we can do about multiple files."