New fee for credit card payments nearly ready

A new fee is nearly ready for approval, one Lansdale Borough officials say is meant to recover the costs of using credit cards for certain payments.

Finance Director John Ramey reported last week that the borough is nearly ready to change the way it processes credit card transactions, adding a new fee to recover costs taxpayers currently pay.

“We have a budget line item for the fees that the borough has been paying. Last year, it was just under $120,000,” he said.

Under current policies, borough staff charge the cost for a utility bill or pool membership or

permit or any other payment to the town, regardless of payment method and with no other fee added. Ramey told council’s administration and finance committee on Aug. 1 that borough finance staff have calculated and recommended instituting a flat fee of $3.50 for every $500 on a utility payment, or a 2.49 percent credit card fee for every other transaction, to cover the costs charged by credit card companies.

“If you want to pay with a credit card for a permit, it would be 2.49 percent of whatever the permit fee is,” Ramey said.

Parks and Recreation staff currently use separate software than the finance department, but the 2.49 percent fee will also be charged for any parks programs, pool memberships, or other fees they charge, he said.

“There will not be any more fees for the borough. All of them will be on the transactions for people that choose to use credit cards,” Ramey said.

Abington Township uses

similar billing and accounting software but does not charge for electric services like Lansdale does, Ramey said, and that municipality has also begun charging a credit card fee to residents. The proposal up for council consideration on Aug. 15 will amend the borough fee structure to add the new fees, and Ramey said the proposal up for council approval was the only company he could find able to do so.

“I did search for many companies, and a lot of companies will do it, but then they won’t integrate, or they will integrate, but not in the way we want. This is the only one that we like,” Ramey said.

Resident B.J. Breish asked if the new fee would also impact the parking kiosks and meters operated by the Lansdale Parking Authority, and Ramey said they would not. The parking authority is a separate legal entity from the borough, Ramey said, and the total credit card fees absorbed by the parking authority tend to run between $45 and $60 per month, but those costs are covered by other parking authority revenues instead of taxpayer dollars.

Council’s administration and finance committee voted unanimously to recommend that full council consider the new fee. Committee chairman Leon Angelichio said doing so would mean the end of what is essentially a subsidy from taxpayers who don’t use credit cards now, to those who do.

“We are asking all of the taxpayers to foot the bill for what a portion of the taxpayers use,” Angelichio said.

“We have decided to go with a firm that is going to pass the cost onto the user. Should you use a credit card, you will be paying the fee,” he said.

If council approves the new fee on Aug. 15, the transition period will likely take the rest of 2018, and the new credit card fee would likely begin with the start of 2019, according to Ramey. Once in place, all transactions would clearly indicate when the fee will be charged, and how much the fee would be.

Borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on Aug. 15 at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine St. For more information or meeting agendas and materials visit www.Lansdale.org or follow @LansdalePA on Twitter.