By BARBARA GREEN
[email protected]
Bowie City Councilors agreed there was a need to implement a credit card fee for city utility bills, however, the panel debated the amount eventually going with a 5% fee effective June 1.
City Manager Bert Cunningham and City Finance Director Pamela Woods presented the proposal at Monday’s meeting. It was tabled from a previous meeting to allow time to research the company Certified Payments to handle the process, along with researching all the fees and calculating what is needed to help pay for more than $92,000 in fees the city pays to process card payments.
The issue had been raised in prior years, but Cunningham reported about two months ago the fees were nearly $100,000 and the city needs to do something to at least break-even with the fees. He previously noted $100,000 would buy a pretty good piece of equipment for the city.
In February the manager reported he would be researching Certified Payments as a potential vendor to handle the process; however, he said Monday night after examining the costs it was about the same as they have now and would not save money. In addition, using the present billing system would not require retraining of employees or customers who pay online or with a card.

Read the full story in the weekend Bowie News.