Paying monthly water bills to the City of McCall will soon cost about a dollar less per transaction.
Last week the McCall City Council approved transitioning the city’s billing software to Caselle Community Connect, which will lower a processing fee paid by customers on each transaction from $2.95 to $2, Finance Director Randy Kyrias told council members.
The city will pay $3,000 per year for the software instead of paying as much as $60,000 per year in processing fees to the patchwork of systems that currently provide billing services across city departments.
“It’ll be a significant cost savings to city, which is really nice, but there will also be a cost savings to the customer as well,” Kyrias said. “It’s kind of a win-win for everybody.”
Water bills first, others to follow
Water Department billing is expected to move to Community Connect within weeks, while other city payments will be added to the portal as contracts with existing providers expire.
Eventually, Kyrias plans to consolidate nearly all city billing under Community Connect, including building permit fees and business licenses.
The consolidated payments will total about $6 million per year, which Kyrias said gave him leverage in negotiating a deal that does not require the city to pay any processing fees.
“They were very happy to just cover that for us, versus being broken up into small pieces,” he said.
The move to Community Connect will also save staff time within the Finance Department by reducing daily reporting demands, Kyrias said.
