Residents of the Town of Highlands will no longer be charged an extra fee when paying for utilities online.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Town of Highlands waived the fees of 2.75 percent for credit card payments and one dollar per e-check to help customers access online bill pay and eliminate a little extra cost during this time to allow for simpler processing of payments.
After doing some research, Highlands’ finance director Rebecca Shuler found that during the waived fee period, the online payment collections have gone up approximately $325,000 since fiscal year 2019-20, from $1.1 million to $1.4 million.
“Citizens are definitely utilizing the system more now that they are not being charged the fees,” Shuler said. “The fees are approximately $15,000 a year to the Town.”
Not only did the collections go up, but Shuler said it provided customer service representatives time daily from handling mail, processing checks into the software and then scanning and filing checks into the vault for records retention.
“When we do in person payments, it goes through four or five peoples’ hands,” Shuler said. “It only takes 10 minutes to do the lock boxes, which only takes one person, but the checks take up to four hours out of the day. Waiving the fees saves a lot of time in-house.”
Highlands Mayor Patrick Taylor said not only the world, but the town is starting to move towards a more digital system.
“I think we are moving away from cash and checks and moving towards credit cards, debit cards and digital processing,” Taylor said. “In my office so often, I hear that it is a lot of stress on both sides when people send in checks. Basically, you are at the mercy of the U.S. Mail and if there is a late fee then it stresses both sides out. With a credit card or debit card, it time stamps when they make the payment so there is no debate if they were late paying it or not.”
The board passed the decision to waive the online fee unanimously.