The tax office will be re-mailing approximately 6,000 tax bills later this week to replace tax bills mailed on Sept. 15, 2009. These original tax bills did not include the $49 charge for street lights.

Many neighborhoods have street lighting and the county pays for this service, and once annually my office bills the property owners for this lighting on their property tax bills. This charge was inadvertently omitted from the tax bills, which we are re-mailing.

This is by no means a tax increase, simply correcting tax bills that were in error when they were mailed.

We ask that the households receiving these corrected bills discard the original 2009 bills and pay the amount shown on the new bills. If your taxes are paid through an escrow account with your mortgage company, you should forward the bill to them and point out that it is a corrected bill.

Homeowners who do not pay their taxes through an escrow account will have until Nov. 30, 2009, to pay their corrected tax bills.

I personally apologize for this inconvenience.

George Wingo

Tax Commissioner

Fayette County, Ga.