Hot Springs outlines July utility billing system migration; credit/debit card payments to be suspended during data transfer

Finance Director Karen Scott asked the board to adopt an ordinance establishing an electronic funds payment system as required by state law and used the discussion to brief directors on a planned utility billing software migration.

Scott said the ordinance and related administrative policy will put in place controls for electronic funds transfers, vendor enrollment procedures and required documentation. She then described the billing system migration to a BSNA database: "Beginning around noon on Friday, July 17th, we will no longer have access to our computer systems for live data entry... we are hoping late Tuesday, July 28th" to resume, subject to data-transfer success.

Scott said the vendor will upload data from the current system on Saturday, July 18 and that the city will be "open for business" during the migration but will be unable to take credit or debit cards for transactions citywide; customers with bank draft enrollments will be converted and disconnections will be suspended during the transfer. Concerned board members said they had received constituent calls after media reports and asked staff to provide clear customer guidance in the June/July bills and to include talking points for directors to answer constituent questions.

Staff said the ordinance also codifies the administrative policy required by Arkansas Code Annotated 14-59-105. If adopted June 16, staff will issue a one-page mailer in July and post instructions to help customers reenroll card payments where needed.