Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Bosque Farms water bills may soon be paid online

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Bosque Farms Residents in Bosque Farms will soon be able to pay their water and sewer bills one of two ways — either by making out a check to the village, something that they've always done, or now with a click of a mouse.

The Bosque Farms Village Council approved entering into an agreement with Xpress Bill Pay for online payments of water and sewer bills at their regular meeting Thursday night. The agreement will be finalized after village attorney Mark Jarmie has a chance to look it over.

"We're hoping that it will be available by the beginning of February," said Gayle Jones, the village's clerk administrator. "It seems like it's going to be a wonderful service."

Jones said she started looking into an online bill payment for the village after being approached by numerous residents inquiring about the services. She told the council that she received the most requests on shut-off days.

"Tuesday was shut-off day, and we probably had 10 requests for online bill pay on that one day alone," Jones said. "This seems to be the wave of the future. Each month we get numerous bank checks that people have their banks pay their bills for them because people are too busy to write a check and bring it in."

Jones said the village would have to pay Xpress Bill Pay an initial fee of $2,500 and an additional $500 a year for transaction fees that would be passed down to the customer.

According to Xpress Bill Pay's Web site, customers' payments in most cases are paid and received the next day. E-mail reminders alert customers when bills arrive, when they're due and when they're paid.

Residents who choose to use the service will also receive a complete history of payment confirmations and online transactions. They will also have the option of using the auto pay service, which allows customers to set automatic payments and not worry about them again.

The Web site also assures its customers that their personal information is safeguarded.

In other business, the village council: