Bank issue may delay credit card payment option in city
There may be a delay in the city of Dunkirk accepting credit card payments that are out of its control.
Thursday, Treasurer Mark Woods made the Finance Committee aware of an issue brought to his attention Wednesday while pursuing accepting credit card and online payments for city bills.
An email from KeyBank’s Government Banking Director John DeVito said the set-up process can take up to 45 days and due to the bank changing its vendor platform, a reasonable timeline would be late January or February.
“One item they didn’t really tell us in our first meeting was that they were in the process of using a new vendor. They really didn’t make us aware of that in the first meeting. They threw it on us yesterday. So this is kind of pushing it back a little. We were really pushing to have this January 1, but because of this they are more pushing toward the end of January,” Fiscal Affairs Officer Marsha Beach explained.
The matter of credit card and online payments was brought up in October and a resolution with a completion date of Jan. 1 was passed by the Common Council at the Nov. 6 meeting.
Woods said this puts a two-and-a-half to three-week delay on the process.
“It kind of puts the timeline into clearer perspective. Following receipt of this, Marsha and I had a conference call with Sheryl and John from KeyBank, who are the credit individuals we are dealing with who handle municipal banking. We ironed out the other details and questions that had come up. We’re looking to have hard copy documents possibly by the middle of next week for everybody to review, ask questions,” he added.
Third Ward Councilman Adelino Gonzalez asked about the cost.
Woods said they won’t know until the documents are sent in. However, the goal has been for this to cost the city nothing, with fees being passed on to those using the payment methods.
Gonzalez also asked if Woods had looked into a second quote. He said he had not, but could look into what Jamestown uses.
Committee chair, Councilman-at-Large Andy Woloszyn, said he will keep the “online banking update” on the finance committee’s agenda in 2018 to receive progress and usage reports going forward.
The committee also discussed approving the 2018 budget at the Common Council meeting Tuesday. According to the City Charter the council must act on the mayor’s budget by Dec. 1.
Beach plans on submitting the last of the housekeeping 2017 budget modifications before the end of the year.
She is also meeting with the city’s auditor on Wednesday. Good news is expected to be announced once the audit is finalized.
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