The chair introduced an ordinance that would allow the mayor or designee to enter one or more contracts without public advertising for bids to integrate ACI Speedpay payments into the city’s future Spry/Scribe project. The presenter said the city currently uses ACI for online credit-card processing and that integrating ACI would move credit-card handling “off the city” into the vendor system while allowing ACI to remit payments to the city.

Councilman Bruce Bolton asked whether the integration would be strictly for the utility division or whether it would handle assessments and tax collection later. The presenter replied "right now, this is strictly for the utility division," and said the city intends to explore options for income tax collection in the future, subject to different legal requirements. The presenter noted the current credit-card transaction fee for utility payments is $2.15 and that no change to that fee had been decided.

The presenter asked to place the measure on the consent agenda; the committee moved, seconded and approved that request by voice vote. The ordinance will appear on the consent agenda for the next council meeting.