by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The mayor’s office acknowledges it will be expensive to implement and bill taxpayers for the new franchise, solid waste and stormwater fees. How much, though, varies depending on who does the billing,
City Council Auditor Kirk Sherman recently submitted a report requested by Council that breaks the billing process into three facets. According to the report, it will cost between $1.16 million and $4.97 million to bill taxpayers over the first three years of the fees. Those costs are above and beyond the actual fees themselves.
“This is something we have known all along,” said Misty Skipper, press secretary to Mayor John Peyton. “There is obviously a cost associated with mailing and collecting the fees. The goal was, and continues to be, to find a mechanism that uses the lowest cost that generates the highest collection rate.”
Sherman said there are three options for billing — JEA, the Tax Collectors Office and the City — and all three have different price tags due to a variety of issues that may or may not have to be addressed. If JEA handles the billing and collecting cost on a monthly basis for three years, the price tag is $4.97 million. If the City handles the process on a monthly basis for three years it’ll cost $3.9 million while the cost is $1.16 if billed annually. The final figure may appear the most attractive. However, according to the figures compiled by Sherman’s office, the $1.16 million price tags equates to a cost of $4.06 per bill compared to $1.45 per bill if JEA handled the process and $1.14 per bill if the City billed on a monthly basis.
“The City and JEA handle things differently,” said Sherman. “JEA lives and dies by their billing system. They have more redundancies built in, meaning if they got hit by a tornado, they have everything backed up somewhere else. They must bring in revenue on a daily basis.”
Sherman acknowledged the figures his office provided are estimates.
“This not formal, it’s just an opinion. It’s just numbers pulled together,” he said. “It could be plus or minus 20 percent at the end of the day.”
The process started about two months ago. Sherman said during a full Council meeting his office was asked to meet with representatives from the three entities for the purposes of exploring how the fees would be implemented and what each would have to do to bill taxpayers and collect and sort the fees from other payments such as electric bills, property taxes and the franchise fee.
“We pulled together their estimates,” said Sherman. “I have no idea what it takes to run a billing system. There are set up costs, capital costs and programs.”
Sherman said his office examined the costs based on a three-year amortization period during which many of the initial costs would be covered. They also figured in inflation, manpower and postage.
“These are ballpark figures,” said Sherman.
In his memo to Council, JEA Managing Director and CEO Jim Dickenson and the City’s Chief Administrative Officer Alan Mosley, Sherman said the biggest difference in cost between JEA and the City is one-time capital set up costs. JEA, he said, would need to add equipment, hardware and software to its customer care and billing area and its disaster recovery site.
Skipper said the mayor’s office is looking for a long term solution and that Sherman’s report will help determine the best course of action. She said being the first year of collections, there will be modifications as the process is analyzed.
Skipper also said there is an appeals process for citizens who feel they should be exempt from the fees.
“You can call 630-CITY and request an application for exemption or go to our Web site (www.coj.net) and download a form,” said Skipper.