At the June 26th City Council Meeting, Business Services Director David Ramsey brought two agendas to the council. One being to enter into a 3 year contract with Global Payments for credit card processing. The agenda being to enact a new policy to deal with credit cards that are declined every month which are set up on auto pay.
Entering into the contract with Global Payments would yield a significant decrease in card processing fees of around 54%. The decision to accept the agenda, which the council was unanimously in favor of, will save the city approximately $412,607.00 per fiscal year. Mr Ramsey also expounded there would be more steps taken in the near future to further decrease the amount of processing fees being paid by the city.
To save the city even more money an auto pay decline policy was drafted. The city currently has many accounts set up through auto pay of which charges are being declined regularly. Each time a card gets declined for a utility service bill the city still must pay the processing fee. According to Mr. Ramsey that fee is typically $2-$5 per transaction. The policy would give the city the ability to add a $5 service charge for each declined auto pay transaction, which would be added to the customer's monthly bill. After the second consecutive decline the city will automatically cancel the customers auto pay enrollment, and apply an additional $5 fee.
The Council once again voted unanimously in favor of the policy.
