FLORENCE — With a couple of clicks on a computer keyboard Thursday, Florence became the first municipality in Kentucky to permit residents to pay their local property and tangible taxes on-line.

        The new payment system went live about noon, and Florence internal systems administrator Valerie Bowman said within 45 minutes someone had paid his taxes on-line.

        A resident need only click on the Florence Web site and follow the directions to pay the taxes, inserting a valid credit card number to complete the transaction.

        “Everything is secure,” explained Chris Sturm, president of Capital Software in Park Hills that developed the program for Florence. “The city does not retain the credit card information after the bill is processed. It all goes to the bank handling the account.”

        Mr. Sturm said he did some background investigation and determined that not only was Florence the first city in Kentucky to offer online and real-time secure credit card payments, it is one of the first in the country to offer complete online tax payment service.

        “We had discussed this and planned for about a year, but we have worked steadily for about two months to be able to go live,” Ms. Bowman said.

        The system accepts all major credit cards, and Mr. Sturm said he is working with the city to eventually enable the system to accept bank drafts as well.

        Covington Finance Director Bob Due said Thursday his city is still developing plans for online tax payment and is probably a year or more away from offering that option.

        “Our current software is all integrated, and we have a substantial investment in it,” he said. “We are looking at the cost factor of being able to do on-line tax payment. When we do make the move, we want the tax payment to be integrated with all our other software.”

        Bill O'Mara, Revenue Director for Lexington-Fayette County Urban Government, said Lexington looked at online payment but “we're not pursuing it right now.”

        “We have over 99 percent for our collection rate, and we won't charge two percent credit card fees to offer the on-line feature when our collection rate is already that high,” he said.

        Florence Mayor Diane Whalen said the city is absorbing the fees from the credit card companies at this point as a service for residents who wish to pay their taxes on-line.

        Florence also offers a variety of payment methods at the government center, including cash, money order, check or credit card.

        City Administrator Jeff Keonig pointed out that the city's new payment system also notifies both the resident and the city by e-mail when the tax payment has been processed.

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