Think of Porter County officials as Bad Santa. They're sending property tax bills to arrive during the second or third week of December.

The expected deadline for the bills is Dec. 31. Pop the cork after you've popped for your property taxes.

This performance by Porter County officials is lackluster, at best.

Once upon a time, property tax bills went out in April, with payments due in May and November. It has been years since that has happened on schedule.

Though Indiana has changed its system for appraising property, this cannot be blamed entirely for the delays. Each county has sent out bills at different times.

In Porter County, government officials and consultants have been meeting weekly to get the property tax billing back on schedule. The county has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for those consultants.

And yet the bills are going out at the very end of the year, even though they are relied upon to fund local government operations throughout all of 2008.

When local governments don't have the tax income on time, they typically borrow money to keep the doors open. That means paying interest on borrowed money, which further drives up the cost of government and puts taxpayers on the hook for even more money.

With the property tax bills this month should come an explanation of why the bills were so late, considering the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on consultants to avoid this very scenario, and what will ensure that the bills go out on time next year.

This subpar performance must not continue. Nor can contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars so county officials can be told how to do their jobs.