Hall County property tax payments are coming in slower than in previous years, but whether the difference is significant won't be known until December.

On Friday, a little more than 70 percent of Hall County property taxpayers had paid their bills in part or in full.

But more than 24,000 county property bills have not been paid at all.

The first half of county tax bills was due Monday. The early due date was a first for the county, which has not allowed property owners to pay in installments until this year.

With the changes, property owners are responding differently than in years' past, according to information provided by Tax Commissioner Keith Echols.

Usually, the week after property taxes are due in the county, about 85 to 87 percent of property owners have paid up.

"It's running a little bit behind," Echols said.

Echols attributes the trickling of the bills, in part, to the county's new installment plan for property taxes.

Under the new plan, property owners are to pay at least half of their bill amounts by Oct. 1 and the bills must be paid in full by Dec. 1.

Anyone who did not pay by Monday will incur a penalty of 1 percent interest of the bill's amount.

"Some people argue (they didn't pay on time) because they didn't understand that we went to a two-payment system," Echols said.

Already this year, the county government has planned its spending around projections that fewer property taxes would be paid this year than in years' past.

Acting Hall County Finance Director Tim Sims said the county budget was formulated with the expectation 95 percent of taxes would be collected, providing about $31.4 million of the county's $84 million budget.

Normally, the spending plan is built with the hope that 98 percent of bills will be paid by the end of the fiscal year.

The lowered expectation this year was mostly due to the depressed state of the economy. Echols said he assumes the economy is also partly to blame for the lack of property tax payments.

"So many people are out of jobs and everything," he said. "This is what I considered happening. People have lost their jobs and they just don't have the money to pay their tax bills."

After a final tally in December, Echols said he and the Hall County Board of Commissioners will reassess the installment plan, whether to market it to taxpayers more aggressively or just scrap the two-payment plan altogether.

The county finance department will also assess whether there's a need to sound an alarm over reduced revenues.

"We are watching it," Sims said. "December is (when) we will start really worrying if only 71 percent of bills are paid."