A county office will soon have some help from an outside agency in an effort to save time and money.

The Warren County Tax Collector’s office with approval from the Warren County Board of Supervisors has signed a one-year contract with Diversified Companies, LLC, based out of Chattanooga, Tenn., to help the office mail car tag renewal notices.

“It should streamline operations and increase efficiency while saving some expenditure,” board president Richard George said.

With this contract the Department of Revenue will send renewal information directly to Diversified Companies and the company will print and send the postcards instead of the tax collector office staff in Warren County.

“It lessens the load on the clerks who would have more time to spend with their customers in service to the tax payers,” George said.

Tax Collector Toni Flaggs-Jones said the cost of the contract is equivalent to the cost of postage without having to deal with the rising cost of stamps. She also said the company would save money by grouping multiple notices being sent to the same location into one postcard.

The contract states there is a $0.07 cent charge for printing postcards and a $0.26 cent charge for mailing postcards. However, she did not have the exact figure for the total contract cost.

“The cost of it is basically about the same as what we’re spending in postage, but it will eliminate the manpower I have to take off the counter to get these cards prepared to go in the mail on a monthly basis,” Flaggs-Jones said.

She said Diversified Companies would automatically be able to note a customers’ change of address when it is registered with the postal service. This service would help her office avoid having to resend returned letters.

“Right now we’re getting anywhere from 100 to 200 tag notices in the mail with change of address,” Flaggs-Jones said. “This can be done before they actually go out in the mail and hopefully we’ll get to the tax payers in a speeder manner if they relocated and haven’t notified our office.”

If the partnership proves to be positive, Flagg-Jones said her office would consider using Diversified Companies this autumn for property tax statements.

She said those statements would go in an envelope for privacy instead of on a postcard.

“Usually in November is when we’re preparing for tax statements and we basically shut down because we have to have everybody here to work on getting those cards sorted, cut, printed and its generally something that takes us the entire month to get them in the mail for December 1,” Flaggs-Jones said.

She said she became interested in bringing Diversified Companies to Warren County when the company teamed up with the Department of Revenue and gave presentations at conventions to share what the company could offer.

“We’re just looking to improve around here and we’re constantly taking suggestions and comments on things that will make this operation work a whole lot smoother and cost effective,” Flaggs-Jones said. “Our goal is to please the tax payers.”