Milton accepts report on e-billing signup incentives
Milton Town Council unanimously accepted an advisory report laying out a plan that would give residents a one-time $2.50 credit on their water bills if they switch from paper bills to e-billing, although council did not advise advancing the plan further at this time.
In September, Town Manager Kristy Rogers and her staff were tasked by council with coming up with an advisory report on how to get more residents to e-billing as a way to help cut some of the town’s administrative costs. Council discussed the idea of some kind of one-time incentive to get residents to make the switch. Rogers delivered her report at council's Feb. 3 meeting.
According to the report, the town sends out an average of 7,300 water bills per year – more than 1,700 per quarter – at an estimated cost of $24,000. All told, Rogers said paper bills cost $3.34 per bill in supplies and staff time. The report says the cost to process payments manually is more than $5,800 annually, versus electronic payments at a cost of $2,500 annually. For just the fourth quarter of 2024, the cost for mailing and processing 1,872 paper bills was $7,700, as opposed to electronic bills, which cost $804 for 335 e-bill customers.
To get more people to sign up for electronic billing, the report recommended a one-time incentive, with town staff determining $2.50 per person to be a fair estimate.
Mayor John Collier said this effort is part of a broader push by the town to get everyone on the same page technologically, with the town working on an update to its website and a mobile app.
“We have a lot of residents in this town who don’t do email. They don’t do text messages. This is an attempt to urge our residents to connect more to us electronically. Maybe this will help segue people more into the idea of using the app so they’re much better informed and social media platforms don’t become the place where they find out what is happening in town,” Collier said.
Rogers said while it will take time to get residents to get away from the idea of a physical bill, she thinks more people switching to e-billing will be helpful.
“It is a great incentive. It will take time for town staff to post those incentives and to monitor and track. What really is the time saver is the online payment portal. Any way to make staff time more efficient is a positive thing,” she said.
Council accepted town staff’s report but did want to move forward with establishing the incentive plan, choosing instead to continue to encourage more residents to sign up without the incentive.
