HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — Leaving taxpayers facing higher property taxes, a new report shows Harris County is not paying some of its bills on time, costing them more money.

During commissioners’ court on Tuesday, County Administrator Diana Ramirez showed commissioners how often the county doesn’t pay its bills in a month. After seeing the report, commissioners said the system was broken and demanded immediate replacement.

They’re upset because every time a bill isn’t paid on time, the county has to pay interest, costing taxpayers more money. ABC13 asked the administrator’s office how much has been spent on interest on late payments over the past two years, but the data is not yet available.

Figures show that two years ago some bills were not paid on time. They implemented a new system, but it’s still not good enough for the commissioners.

The county executive met with commissioners Tuesday to talk about the issue. Diana Ramirez said they made the change after discovering many bills were going unpaid.

Two years ago, approximately 25% of bills were not paid within a month. In fact, nearly 7% of bills went unpaid within three months.

It’s better, but there are still many bills that aren’t paid on time. This year, the number of unpaid invoices within a month decreased to 14 percent. The number of invoices waiting to be paid within three months dropped to 3 percent.

But commissioners say the situation is still not good enough and they want immediate accountability.

“We don’t even keep track of the interest we owe,” said Harris County Commissioner Lesley Briones. “We’re watching the clock, not sending invoices to the auditor and the department at the same time. So I think that’s a fundamental thing.”

“You have a lot of problems,” Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey said. “We have to treat this as if we have a lot of problems, and we have to treat this as if it’s a data time. Tomorrow will be better than today. We can’t come out of this meeting thinking, ‘Well, we’ve got a plan.”

County leaders say they plan to come back early next year to give an update. That’s too long for some commissioners.

They want an update at the next commissioners’ court meeting later this month.

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