Report Prepared by: Venus Rodriguez, Finance Officer
Title
SUBJECT: Approval of an Application and Agreement with BridgePay for Credit Card Payments
REPORT IN BRIEF
Approving an Application and Agreement with Bridge Pay for online credit card payments
RECOMMENDATION
City Council - Adopt a motion:
A. Approving the Application and Agreement with BridgePay; and,
B. Authorizing the City Manager or Deputy City Manager to execute the necessary documents; and,
C. Authorizing the Finance Officer to make any necessary budget adjustments.
Body
ALTERNATIVES
1. Authorize agreement as recommended by staff: or,
2. Refer to staff for further evaluation: or,
3. Deny.
AUTHORITY
Charter of the City of Merced, Section 200.
CITY COUNCIL PRIORITIES
As provided for in the 2021-22 Adopted Budget.
DISCUSSION
In March of 2020 the City Council approved an agreement with Tyler Technologies for the implementation of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The new ERP system will be implemented over four years in six phases. The first phase of Financials began in November 2020 and is scheduled to go live in April 2022.
Currently the City of Merced uses Central Square’s transaction manager for utility billing online credit card payments. In person credit card transactions utilize Wells Fargo as a transaction manager. Selectron is used for credit card payments made over the phone. In addition, all credit card transactions have merchant fees through Visa, Mastercard, etc. The city absorbs credit card merchant fee for utility payments. All other types of credit card payments receive a 3.15% merchant fee directly to the customer.
As a part of the Tyler implementation the city needs to use a credit card transaction manager that will work in conjunction with Tyler software. There were only two options, BridgePay or Tyler Technologies. We received demonstrations and costs from both. The Tyler transaction manager is very new and there was not sufficient data yet to confidently select them. Ultimately the city chose BridgePay because they have been working with Tyler for several years and we had more confidence in the product as far as less errors or glitches during processing. BridgePay will charge $0.10 per transaction and waive activation fees and monthly minimum fees.
The City will need to enter into an agreement with BridgePay as a transaction manager for all online and in person credit card transactions in order to be able to provide the service. Although we are entering into an agreement now there will not be any costs for this vendor until the new Tyler ERP goes live. We will need to run dual systems until full implementation of the ERP; therefore, we will continue to pay Central Square for utility online payments per transaction. When the City is ready to terminate the Central Square agreement there will not be any penalties.
The city averages 300 non-utility credit card transactions and 7,000 utility credit card transactions monthly, equaling $8,760 (.10 per transaction) annually in transaction manager fees. The new ERP will allow for online payments for all types of charges not just utility which could increase the amount of non-utility credit card transactions in the future.
IMPACT ON CITY RESOURCES
Utility credit card transaction fees are shared by Fund 557 Water, Fund 553 Sewer, and Fund 558 Refuse operating funds. All other credit card transaction fees will be included in the Finance budget annually. Funding for fiscal year 2021-22 is available within the Council Adopted Budget. All future years will be included in the annual budget process.
ATTACHMENTS
1. BridgePay Application and Agreement