Richmond City Hall won’t be accepting cash transactions any time soon.
Paying property taxes and other fees to the city in cash was halted early in the pandemic to reduce handling of bills, and city staff reported this went fairly smoothly – fewer than 10 people insisted they wanted to pay by cash but, in the end, they were denied this option.
The policy of not accepting cash payments was supposed to end on Sept. 30.
Staff suggested to council they continue this policy until the end of March 2021, citing in their report that it not only supports social distancing, it also combats money laundering.
Richmond property taxes were due on July 2, but council decided to waive late payments until the end of September in order to allow people with COVID-19-related financial hardships some leeway.
Between March 24 and July 31, the city had more than 28,000 in-person or mail-in payments out of a total of almost 138,000 transactions.
The extension of non-cash payments until March was supported by council at Tuesday's committee meeting.
The final council decision is expected at Monday's meeting.
