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2004-07-14 CC WS & Meeting
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2004-07-14 CC WS & Meeting
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<br />Page I of2 <br /> <br />, Ellen Paul seth <br /> <br />m: james.carufel@southstpaul.org <br />nt: Thursday, December 11, 2003 9:52 AM <br />To: epaulseth@centervillemn.com <br />Subject: Credit Card Study Results <br /> <br />Hello Colleagues: <br />Sorry about the last e-mail without the results. The attachment upload feature did not work. Here are the results: <br /> <br />A few weeks ago I sent the MGFOA listserv the following... <br /> <br />. "South St. Paul is studying the question... Should the city allow customers to a for water bills, licenses, ermits and <br />~ ~ecreation fees with credit cards, debit cards and direct e uctlOns rom their checking account. ? <br /> <br />If your city allows any of these payment vehicles for licenses, water bills, permits or recreation fees, please send me a <br />brief e-mail mentioning I) What you allow, 2) What you think it cost you (fees, lost water bill penalties, staff time, <br />auditor costs and 3) What benefit is derived (e.g. 40% of our water customers use it and love it). <br /> <br />Even if you don't allow these payment vehicles, please share any information or opinion you might have." <br /> <br />We received a very good response. We heard form 35 cities that DO allow some method of electronic payment. We <br />also heard from some cities and which do not allow any ofthese electronic payment options but were mterested in <br />expressing a view and/or requested the results of the survey. <br /> <br />survey was not inteded to provide hard data but rather to gauge the general state of the city industry in its <br />acceptance of electronic payments. We did come away with some solid trends. Individual city information is not <br />available. <br /> <br />For purposes of the results, responding cities of St. Paul, Duluth, Minneapolis (all of which are very liberal in allowing <br />forms of payment) have been excluded. <br />General Usage <br />So we ended up with 32 positive responses - cities that allow some form of electronic payment. Based on the 150 or so <br />cities listed in the MGFOA directory, a positive response of32 indicates that about 20% allow some sort of payment. <br />However, a number of cities which allow payments did not respond - my estimate is that 30% of Metro Area and larger <br />outstatp: ('lt1Pc !l11nu.r electronic navments. <br />.water Sewer Bills <br />~ Only 5 of the 32 cities allow cerdit card payments of water/sewer bills ehereas ALL 32 allow ACH (direct deduction <br />from checking accounts). Those allowing credit cards characterized it as being done purely for customer service and <br />costly in lost penalty revenues and credit card fees. Those cities with ACH that have software which automatically <br />credits payments from the ACH data said it actually saved them time. Conclusion: ACH is the state of the industry - not <br />credit cards. ACH was not prominent in any other areas of city operations. <br />Retail Ooerations <br />. If a city has a liquor store or golf course, they accept credit cards. This is considered a necessary cost of being in the <br />competitive, commercial world. Credit cards also seem to be the norm at larger community/aquatic ceneters also. <br />Including monthly flat fees, the overall cost of credit cards runs 1.5% to 3.5% with 2.5% appearing to be average. <br />Park and Recreation Fees <br />state of the industry here seems to be a mixed bag. If a city already allows credit cards for retail operations, it is <br />y that they will also allow credit cards for park and recreation fees. Ifthey don't already allow credit cards, it is <br />highly unlikely that they will be allowing credit cards ONLY for parks and recreation fees. <br />Permits and Other Charges <br />, This might be a future growth area but right now few cities allow credit cards for permits, fines etc. There were a <br /> <br />7/1/2004 <br />
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