The City Utilities Committee on Nov. 24 approved two requests: authorization for the mayor or his designate to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Summit County Combined General Health District to support compliance with the city's NPDES permit, and authorization to pay $16,090.36 to the State Treasurer/Ohio EPA to maintain the municipal public water-system license.

Mister Griffin presented the MOU and the payment request, both listed with emergency language and one-reading requests. "This is to provide compliant services for the city's NPDES permit," Griffin said when introducing the MOU.

During miscellaneous discussion staff explained a previously unreported issue with the city's online payment processor, NvoiceCloud. Staff described that when NvoiceCloud added PayPal and corrected their setup, the system briefly credited customers 95¢ rather than applying a 95¢ processor fee to transactions. Staff said that originally—per contract—the 95¢ was intended to be retained by the processor to cover card-processing fees, and that NvoiceCloud has now corrected the configuration to align with the contract. "When we first set up with them...they were supposed to be charging the $0.95 to the customer," a staff member said, describing the vendor correction during spring/summer 2025.

A council member asked whether the city had paid the 95¢ for the past year; staff said the city had been covering that amount since implementation and that the vendor later corrected the implementation so the fee remains with the processor going forward.

The committee also addressed a recent water-main leak on Worcester Oak West, explaining crews initially excavated in one location, then used sound equipment to find the leak further up the line; staff said that the line appeared to be older infrastructure and the crew repaired the issue quickly.

Why it matters: The MOU and license payment are administrative steps to maintain regulatory compliance for stormwater/discharge and drinking-water operations; the billing-fee review clarifies that the city's vendor error briefly affected customer billing and that the vendor corrected it. The city's payment-history for the 95¢ fee may have short-term budget implications and consumer-billing clarity.

Next steps: The MOU will proceed per authorization; finance and utilities staff will finalize payment and monitor billing processor settings to ensure fee treatment remains consistent with contract terms.