04-23-2018 Council Meeting Packet

Home Search

WS – Item 1 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item No. 1 Date: April 23, 2018 To: City Council From: Sarah Cotton, Finance Director Re: Update – Accounting Clerk/Utility Billing Background At the April 9, 2018 City Council Meeting, the City Council discussed the vacant Accounting Clerk/Utility Billing position in the Finance Department. Staff received direction from the City Council related to looking into outsourcing portions of the Utility Billing function, in addition to providing a monthly billing in order to better serve residents. Councilmember Stoesz further requested that staff look into automating the mundane tasks related to the Utility Billing Clerk role by utilizing the services of a third party vendor (i.e. outsourcing the printing/mailing of statements and processing of payments- lockbox services). Staff sent out a request to the Finance ListServe in attempt to understand what other cities are doing in terms of outsourcing the utility billing function as a whole or in part. Many cities are outsourcing the printing and mailing of utility bills and the processing of payments utilizing various vendors. Staff currently spends 4-6 hours each month printing, stuffing, and mailing utility statements. The hardware used to accomplish this task was replaced in 2016. The bulk of the manual cash receipting related to the utility billing function is performed by the Office Specialist role in the Finance Department. Payments are received via drop box, mail, and bill pay checks. Staff estimates that about 30% of payments received on a monthly basis are processed utilizing autopay or web-based payment solutions. These payments automatically interface with the finance software. Staff has previously reached out to Springbrook support regarding the import options available for cash receipting. Due to being on the cloud, we were told that customization was limited. Staff contacted Springbrook again to find out more information regarding the configurable import options that may be available to streamline cash receipting (i.e. Permit Works and lockbox payment processing import files). Due to the import being a premium feature of the Springbrook software, staff is waiting for a response from the sales team.