2.10. ERMUSR 06-12-2012 - Laserfiche WebLink

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?-1*Elk River Municipal Utilities 13069 Orono Parkway P.O. Box 430 Elk River,MN 55330 (763) 441-2020 UTILITIES COMMISSION MEETING TO: FROM: Elk River Municipal Utilities Commission Theresa Slominski—Finance and Office John Dietz, Chair Manager Daryl Thompson, Trustee Al Nadeau, Trustee MEETING DATE: AGENDA ITEM NUMBER: June 12, 2012 2.10 SUBJECT: Policy for Returned Un-Paid Items revision BACKGROUND: We have a policy to charge up to $30(per MN State Statute 604.133)for items returned unpaid due to insufficient funds. Currently, we charge $20 for this occurrence. If a customer has repeated occurrences of submitting NSF payments, we put them on a"no checks accepted" status. We would like to charge an additional fee of$20 if the customer repeatedly continues to try and submit a check for payment, once on this status. DISCUSSION: To help explain the rational for such a charge, understanding the administrative handling of the payments is necessary.When a customer is placed on a"no checks accepted" status,there is a notation placed on their account. As check payments are posted to the customer's account,this notice appears and flags the person posting that a check is an unacceptable form of payment. (At this time,the deposit has already been created, and the posting file batch balance determined.) When this notice appears, 1)the batch posting is stopped 2)the appropriate deposit is retrieved 3)the check is removed and the deposit ticket redone for the new amount 4)the batch total is updated to agree to the deposit amount 5)the batch posting is resumed and completed. This takes unnecessary staff time and creates inefficiencies. While it does stop the payment from going to the bank and alleviating the handling of an NSF payment, the staff handling time is about the same. We justify the $20 NSF charge for the administrative time it consumes. The additional charge we are proposing would be justified the same. To comply with state statute, we should have an ordinance adopted by the City Council ratifying this fee. Typically this is done at budgeting time with any other fees we have in place. Should the Commission agree with this additional fee now, they may choose to adopt the policy now and request an ordinance at a POWE8 ► 1 iiu1 R Rel iable Public P O W E R E D To S E R V E Power Provider •