With fewer than three weeks left to pay property taxes, the county treasurer’s office has a new way to take care of that obligation with just the click of a mouse.

This week county property owners can pay their taxes online through the county treasurer’s office website at www.lawrencecountytreasurer.org.

“By doing it online, it gives someone the opportunity, if they have to be out of the county, say wintering in Florida, and their tax bill hasn’t caught up to them,” County Treasurer Stephen Burcham said. “It is another option that they can utilized.”

Bills for the first half taxes went out the first of the February and are due by March 2. So far no one has paid taxes online, but Burcham said he has gotten some calls about the process. And the new website logs an average of 200 hits a day.

Right now tax collections are basically on pace with this time last year.

“It is a little ahead of that time last year,” Burcham said. “The checks are moving right through. We have a number of payments the first part of February, then it slacks off in the middle of the month and it will pick up at deadline.”

If property owners pay with a credit card online, there is a 2.95 percent fee.

“That is the same as using a credit card at the (treasurer’s office) window,” Burcham said.

That’s because by law the county cannot incur the fee that a merchant does when a credit card is used in his business.

“It is another tool people can use in their tool box,” Burcham said. “Some of the larger counties do this. We are one of the few our size that do it, according to the banks.”