you know we have our own website we have ways to communicate um you know oh to those who have signed up um obviously because we're mailing the utility bills out that we obviously can put a pamphlet in um you know an insert to kind of explain more of the options that are available before we made a switch to any which way that we were going to go to so there's it really comes down to after you give the direction and the decision um then it would really become to how we communicated to the residents here to help them out the best that we possibly can they brought it up sorry you go one concern that I'm thinking about is the the uptick in users around the credit card right it's substantial it's significant um I guess my concern is if there were there was a change would that deter people from pain in general just just for us to think about you know and and are there going to be a lot more late fees things like that for us to kind of grapple with I know uh council member Wong I think that's that's a very good question don't have definitive answers um I I think there's a tendency of I'll ask a question uh when's the last time you've written a check that's the only time so I I mean I think we're seeing there has been a huge shift and you know it's either a debit card or a credit card that you're that you're utilizing for for your payments that's what makes things you know tough to not you know uh that can still be an option um it would come down to the question are we paying continuing to pay for those fees or or are we passing those on to the the residents and and that's really where the question comes down to and I think the Gen the younger Generations that are coming out I think have never written a check and probably never will um so you know that that option has to be there for them um and um our you know population is getting younger here in the city of North St Paul so we have to be aware of that um as far as would it increase um you know delinquency I you know we wouldn't know until we were we were there um so I really can't answer any of that question um you know if if there was a shift you know would it deter people from using their credit card if they have to pay that probably would be more likely um especially something that you're paying on a monthly basis that's why we definitely would want to have them move to to setting up for an auto pay where they wouldn't be charged something but uh yeah it's hard to answer yeah I with the my trajectory of thinking I was kind of thinking why are people using credit cards is it because they maybe don't even have enough in their bank and then they're just kind of paying that until they can you know get their next paycheck or what have you so I'm just kind of wondering what are some of those factors convenient is it convenience is it just don't have the money right away you know just trying to think about all those different factors right now and I think that's fantastic I thought that I had had is that you know maybe we put together a survey before we make a final decision on this and and try to get some resident input um and and find out where they're at and hopefully we would get some responses to give us a little bit more indication um it doesn't necessarily prevent the city council for making a decision of passing on the fees to the residents or not but it kind of I think at minimal it would allow us an opportunity to how we would get communication out to them to our residents to make sure that they're have knowing all of the options for payment and helping them to find the best one for themselves do are you okay do you happen to have the data is there a way we could get this broken down um residential versus commercial I I'd be curious to to know the difference impact the impact as far as dollars and cents of the charges are well 8.7 million that we collected of a utility bill some of that was billed to we'll say like um Newman's bar right sure so how many of these were bills to businesses so how much of the credit card fees come from businesses versus Residential Properties that might be a way we might possibly think about drawing that division line sure we can see if we can get that information I don't know how readily available it is but definitely we'll try to get that we have to remember that you know the the total you know annual bill is closer to 19 million dollars for the utilities so you know that eight is a you know the fraction of it but yeah we can see what we can break get broken down for you we did go back on the website it only takes credit cards so if we did any kind of change bank routing at least have another another option is yes not cost speaking absolutely for that then you're able to because I probably would have set it up because how many times did your credit card get compromised and I got to go to each one of these places and change my credit yeah I think even no matter what we do we should add bank routing onto our website because that will take a lot of the credit card stuff off too besides venmo is that a secure payment method been more they take like about the same as of course the customer pays do they charge yeah they do customer but the customer yeah though right just like we are charged with the credit card again right correct as a vendor as a vendor I um my significant other uses some of those services and as a vendor they get hit with a lot of charges too so I I don't think those would be beneficial for the charges maybe for either party it sounds like my kids have no idea what a check is but they all know venmo isn't it yeah isn't it yeah some mayor monkey I think okay we'll get that we'll get that changed mine's much longer now other questions thoughts like utility and the Park rental those processing fees um when it comes out of those funds is it taxing or is it too much or is it going over budget or how do you how are you looking at that um well no they're not going over budget because they're included in the budgets so I think the uh the park processing fees were about sixty eight hundred dollars that's coming out of general fund which is a levy fund the other processing fees are being paid by the electric fund um in in the electric fund at least from a fund balance standpoint cash balance and funds balance standpoint is doing very well so it's not hurting but then comes the argument that if you're not if the city's not paying those fees that's a reduction in expenditures on the electric side gives the city council options to think about when it comes to the budget time as far as either in times where energy charges are going up it may be that we don't raise the electric rate as high because we now have you know a savings from not paying the processing fees and or we look at the potential of transferring funds from the electric Fund in that amount to some other place that may have a need the first need that comes to my mind is the roads in the streets and and how the city will afford to do that in the upcoming years and the years beyond that so here's an opportunity to potentially transfer some funds to help out the roadways um and and again there's there's a part that we'll never know at this point in time it's kind of like the the question of you know would it increase delinquency and and that is does does a switch of having the credit card fees passed on to the resident switch how they're paying if they go to an auto pay in an ACH no problem if it switches to being more in the mail then that's more staff time because they actually have to be processed and in their accounts and yeah and everything so then someday we may end up having a discussion on you know you know what the impact to the staff you know piece to it but again don't have any data to say yeah this is what's going to happen or not it's just to be aware of every decision we make always has pros and cons and ramifications so Tim did bring up or you brought up a good point when it came to using a check I did use the checks I go to the DMV to get the tabs and I when I was down there I asked and they said they couldn't use State money to pay for a convenience fee that's why they have to charge that outside of it is that that you ever heard of that for the state yeah for any for because that's that's a convenience fee and they can't use the tax dollars for it that's the reason why they break it out because you have to pay that fee I've never I've never heard that that's what I heard I definitely definitely something I'm slow on the intake tonight but no I went there that's because I asked I said why do you charge for a credit card fees because I would think everybody would use a credit card and uh the gentleman behind the counter says the with the with the state money you'd be paying any convenience fees they can't do that's why they break it out something I'll look what I'll look into and see if there's a statute out there if it's just if it's just applicable to state agent state agencies or locals um so we'll see yeah where that is on there nothing else is slowed you down from arguing with them that's right yeah and the thing about that one way too for sure so I'm did I hear you say 19 million dollars was basically our utilities our utility bill for this income for this city correct okay all right I was just one of the questions that I had was what are these total what are the total fees divided against the total income and it's a little over a percent um but when I look at the raw dollars of 200 and whatever it was work with me I'm gonna say 210 207 is that right we're going to round up I'm good with 210. that's four percent of Levy I mean that's a big number when you look at it when you start talking about it that way when we're going to start to get into those loving increased conversations here in about another six weeks I think before that in six weeks before it jumped out at me but I was just curious from an overall standpoint a Point's a point part of it's the cost of doing business but when you look at it is what it would do to a potential living increase or decrease so council member Cole that's exactly where my mind goes and that's part of our discussions that we had last budget process and going through uh the various workshops and that is it we've got a you know every seventy thousand dollars is one percent in the in the levy increase now from where our Levy is at so you're looking at three percent um yeah I it's nothing to you know for me to to say hey Let's ignore it that's why it's brought up in front of the city council um and uh there's mechanisms that would be able to allow us to to because the fun because they're being paid from an Enterprise fund today uh to get it over to the general fund would have to require a transfer when we build transfers you know within our budget already um you know we're transferring right now into the general fund the amount of eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars that come from our various Enterprise funds HRA and the Eda so can we do transfers absolutely do I think about that yeah that's kind of why I brought this up and and looked at it and but I can't make that final decision I can just throw the ideas out there um and and see um you know what the appetite is um but you're absolutely right three percent is a lot of a lot of increase and and that three percent means it hits each and every resident residential commercial everybody so any other questions anyone that was great information I was glad you brought it up because so I'm just going to go through the three options real kind of quick just for something to think about and then I I am going to ask for a little bit of direction in which way we want to go I've already got got a couple of items that um that uh that will you know get on get onto um and I'll kind of summarize them at the at the end so option one would be that the city continues to pay all credit card costs I've contacted two uh companies and um their uh processing fees were pretty much identical um so there's fees that the actual credit card companies charge that we have really no um we can't control um so if you're using a Mastercard or a visa from this they're going to charge a fee then there's in addition to that there's a layer where the Processing Company will charge some sort of fee the two companies that I contacted were pretty close to it and had it estimated out to what it would be on an annual basis and just making a change to either one of those two companies would save us about thirty one thousand dollars just off the bat of just changing companies again that's that's kind of you know the value of of doing rfps of kind of checking uh you know the climate in in different Industries or services or vendors that we're currently using because many times you can get reduced costs um in option number two the city could continue to pay all of the credit card costs and then charge a percentage kind of as a fee to the customer if we were to charge a one percent utilizing what the actual payments were on credit cards for 2022 in addition to that Thirty one thousand dollar savings we would end up coming up with a total of 118 000 savings if it was a 1.5 percent it'd be 162. two percent would be 206 and then the two and a quarter would make us above the break-even point for for both utilities and park funds expenses on the credit cards and then I just threw one in a little bit higher than that but the one 2.25 is in red because it's really you've hit your break-even point of what the costs have been part of the reason where from what I've learned from in discussions with some of these processing companies is that if the city is the one to pay for the fees we get a lower rate because we have a better credit than if we were just to pass them on then the fees can be a little bit higher neither one of them would really tell me what that difference would be well they just said that you know it ends up being a little bit higher because they're assuming a little bit more risk um from from because it would be a direct obligation with the resident and the company versus North Saint Paul and the company ignore on that when I do see that she's about three and a quarter when they kind of break out what the fee would be yeah yeah a savings about a percent it looks like yeah um option two continued it was just kind of showing what each one of those options would be as an impact to our residents who are paying by the credit card so the average utility bill is about 222 dollars and so one percent would be an increase of uh you know would be a charge of about two dollars and twenty two cents 333 444 and a five dollars if you were to hit the the break-even point and then option number three is just to shift all of the utility and the park um you know charges over to the residents and then we would have that annual saving of a 178 thousand dollars uh uh so those are kind of just some thoughts of of kind of options but uh clearly um this is your decision and just really kind of looking for direction from City Council on what we would like to do for option three um does that also include the RFP too um yes okay okay yep yeah we still have to do an RFP and that's where the direction comes before putting an RFP it's do we are we the ones who are going to be paying or are we going to have the residents pay um but yeah there's you know because obviously they still need to get that information integrated into our financial system so yeah for that clarification questions thoughts Direction do you know are we able to separate how we build commercial versus residential yes yeah we have yeah it just I don't know if it's an easy if there's an easy report to know if um you know that we can total up all of the commercial properties that paid via credit card versus residential being paid by credit card that was the only part to it I can tell you how much but hypothetically could the city decide to say we still pay all credit card fees for residential but passed directly on on all commercial um I don't see how that would I I don't you know anything probably is possible I just don't see how that would be able to make that distinction from somebody who's paying how would you verify that you're paying a commercial um property versus a knot I don't know that would be something that I would have to ask a credit card company how they would be able to do that if it was even possible so I like to see the the fee covered as far as the 2.25 the one you had that was highlighted that would take care of it it's about a percent less than what it would be if they had to do it on their own for what I've seen around about the three and a quarter so that's a discount with that but I don't think we should in my opinion is not make money off of a credit card just try to just try to be even try to do them a favor it's one percent less than doing that but we can't be absorbing 172 000 a year either that's my thought s on the website oh that's that that's pretty clear and we're going to be working on that start tomorrow morning so we'll find out our options on onto that absolutely I mean yeah no matter what the decision is that message loud and clear and yes it should have been although I was underneath the understanding that it was something that was easily that it was out there and yeah so I yeah yeah good perfect I mean that's as long as we're not pulling the rug out yeah just understand and give another option that's not the cost and again if that is the direction that city council wants to go to me we advertise this before it actually gets implemented too and so it would be something that um you know for three months it would go in the inserts with the bills it would be on our website that this is happening making sure that we have all of our options that they're easily understood that there's some sort of way that you know if there's a you know how do you do it type of thing questions and answers that are there it's really how do you make it as easy for the residents to make a transition other thoughts I I hear are Mayors looking at that 2.25 percent um as an option of charging um others at that point or different or I mean if you're using a credit card yes foreign no I I'm always happy to go but let's [Laughter] emotional processing there you go that's why we that's why I love her she's our thought processor okay I'll go um I think as I said earlier for starters I was surprised that we even took credit card I didn't know that was an option I would have been getting my points for years [Laughter] um I firmly believe we need to have a no charge process and so you know that's why I asked I've done the bank draft for as many years as I can remember so um as long as that option exists when it comes to park rentals I know one of the things that we do require is that the damage deposit be paid immediately so that was why you know credit card has always been an option I don't know if we offer a what was the three letters you used yeah that Nach for for that um but I firmly believe we need to do something so that the residents there isn't a fee there um but I also don't want to take away the flexibility of of the credit card for those who who need it or may need it from from time to time or want their points um and I'm I'm aligned with the other two um I like the percentage better than a flat fee because then it then everybody's treated you know equal as opposed to a to a flat dollar amount um and as long as we're not necessarily making a profit off of the credit card fees whatever it rolls to is what you know if if we get charged a little higher because of the decisions we made those you know I'm aligned with passing those along I would agree with the percentage component if that um was the option um between a flat fee and a percentage um I hesitate for it to be too high right kind of um I would hate to deter people from paying their bills and if it's a convenient thing I think about this in like a behavioral economics way like if that's easy for people to just do that that's that's great um if you take it away if you put barriers in front of it will they again not pay so I really um it's it's just the highest use so just being careful where that that point is um which I don't know yet still thinking thank you no I think that I think uh councilmember Wong I think that's a very good point in in you know the the component to is we don't know what what impact this will have you know we don't know what impact because we don't know what direction that residents would go into um even if we make it much easier to do an ACH do they go that option do they not um does it create you know residents that get very angry with it I I have no idea does it increase our delinquency I don't know those are things that we'll end up having to to watch and track and and we do we look at all of that stuff on a very continuous basis um so we're you know I mean that's all being tracked on a monthly basis so so we can definitely report back to city council what some of these results are if we if we see something that you know is drastically you know impacting what we believe is good customer service and and um you know I I think the option of a credit card how whatever came to be here in the city in the city picking up the fees to it I definitely agree with you know offering an option an option to be able to use your credit card or debit card I mean that's you know that's that's customer service I mean that's what you have to do in in um in in the industry today whether it's was wise for us to always be paying or not that's you know that's really the the question that really comes to everybody today is there going to be some individuals that are going to be upset absolutely um I'm wondering too there's a slide where you have all the different payment methods um I think it's slide page 12 of 18 and it says um let's see in 2017 we see kind of like a drastic increase of Bank draft is that the and you may not know but um because this I think was before your time but do you think that's when we started implementing Bank draft um it was in existence before that there I don't know the reason if that was a push um and there was some sort of advertisement to there I definitely will find out why it's you know it jumped up from 2017 to 2018. um but uh because yeah that's that's you know a very significant you know change um that had occurred so yes I will uh take a look at that okay anyone else anything you want us to have official recommendation going forward for you um I I don't think I I you know yeah I think I have enough yeah I have enough information um that um so what I'm hearing is that there's more of a consensus to well I I think it's well with the exception of council member uh Norview as hasn't weighed in on this um I think there's definitely uh four members that are looking that there should be a charge back to the residents to offset the costs um three of which are saying we should be at a break-even point at that 2.25 percent um one hasn't really made the determination of where that should be um so I think you know the majority is speaking to me and saying yeah we really need to you know pass on those those fees to the residents and we need to make sure that we have other options available for our residents and make sure that their communicated and that they're easy to use and so with that what I'm going to do is to put together an RFP and get that on the street and bring the results back to city council for your final approval and blessing at that point in time unless there's a difference in thought or opinion if I could just request a little bit more information sure frequency piece of it just would love to know how it correlates with some of these other data points that you have so you would like to know year by year the delinquency that uh that we're having it's available sure so what I'm hearing is that we're looking for some additional information on commercial and residential usage of credit card if we can break get that broken down um that we need to make sure that the ACH options on the websites clearly identified and easy to use um I'm going to do a little searching on Minnesota state statutes to find out if uh if government funds that's true yeah well it it it it will it'll be one of those ironic things that maybe this isn't something the city should have been doing a long type of thing and then this was easy to answer so that's very good um and then to get an answer to why the bank draft jumped significantly from 2016 to 2017 and then delinquencies year by year at least from 2016 moving forward so I'll have that done before we leave today no I'm just kidding no yeah I thank you very very much and and thank you other business anybody have any other business no I'm just not go by name anybody okay then I'll call for adjournment at 6 24. anybody motion it so moved your honor so we'll call to number one second council member Norby everybody in favor say aye aye adjourned at 6 24. if I have to tell the time see I'm already one step ahead that's true again