As soon as next year Westminster residents could pay their utility bills online. “Currently, the only way people can pay their city sewer and water bills is by mail, phone or in person,” said Joseph Urban, the city?s finance director.
In the proposed fiscal 2007 budget, the council set aside nearly $350,000 for the new Eden System. An additional $200,000 will be budgeted over several fiscal years.
“We are in the 21st century, yet we are still operating in the 1970s with our current accounting system,” said Westminster Mayor Thomas Ferguson.
The old financial system is a basic general ledger system that produces balance sheets and income statements with only summary totals, preventing department heads from viewing expense details, said Urban.
“The only way managers could determine their status on spending was to go to the finance office and pull out specific invoices. Now, they will do it online,” he said.
“With the current system, it takes a day and a half to break out the telephone charges for the entire city, because I have to take out every individual invoice and add it up manually with a calculator.”
Urban said the city would phase in the new system over the next year. In August, the core financial system will be online. In December, home utility bills will be formatted to provide customers more usage information. And in January 2007, payroll and other city employee information will be put on the system.
The online billing option could expand to other city-issued fees and permits, Urban said. Westminster chose Washington state-based Tyler Technologies to provide the new Eden System after a two-year selection process, Urban said.
Urban, who has been in his position for three years, said part of the reason Westminster kept an antiquated system for so long was because of his predecessor.
“Steven Dutterer was in the finance office for 27 years and was comfortable with the old system and made a conscious decision not to change it,” he said.
Financial system costs
» $330,468 for software and training
» $18,000 for hardware, including printers and scanners
