At Tuesday's regular Christiansburg Town Council meeting, during the Citizen Hearings portion at the beginning, one resident had plenty to say about wanting to make water, sewer and tax payments online.
This citizen stated he'd been told at least five (5) years ago this would be happening "by the end of the year" -- and he'd been hearing this for five (5) years now. When, exactly, he asked, would this be available? Once again, he hadn't received his bi-monthly water and sewer bill in the mail. It wasn't until he reconciled his monthly finances he figured this was absent. So he trotted down to town hall to make the payment, including a 10% penalty.
This citizen went on to say he'd spoken to numerous friends and neighbors, and some council members -- and they all expressed strong support for such a common service, and frustration they were still waiting for it. He said he'd heard much of the computer software and/or hardware to support such "bells and whistles" had since become obsolete or ruined by an employee. Had council thrown away $250,000 in taxpayers funds? He'd heard another half million would be needed to get the town's system fully functional.
The Mayor demanded -- twice -- to know who this citizen had been talking to. The Town Manager sort of snidely indicated he was probably getting misinformation "from some blog" and that the software hadn't been sitting unused in a closet, as the citizen had indicated he'd been told. It was a town-wide system, tying every department together through modules.
One councilman indicated he'd been paying his water bill via an online banking service for several years. This allows an electronic transfer to be scheduled for a certain date or amount. The citizen said he didn't know about those types of bank services and wanted to just be able to use his checking account's debit card by going to the town's website. The councilman indicated his bank would be coming to town soon, and the citizen should check out its services -- and then was jokingly reminded this could be perceived as a conflict of interest since his bank is also his employer.
Another citizen asked whether the current budget included allocations for any further upgrades, or if other expenses would be incurred to implement online bill paying. The Assistant to the Town Manager (not to be confused with the Assistant Town Manager) said the last module had been purchased from last year's budget, so everything had already been paid for.
The Mayor restated there were many, many modules and town employees had been getting training on the software for the past two years. "Two years? For training?," the citizen asked, incredulous. "When will it be available and do you have to spend more money?" The response? By the end of the year with no additional spending, per the Town Manager.
Another councilman indicated he had been told "year end" several times, too, passing this on to residents each year. "We thought we'd have it up and running. Now that our new Finance Director is here, we're hoping she can get it going."
The new Finance Director, on day two of her job, stated later in the meeting (in response to an ongoing request by council relative to the format of bills up for approval) she'd not yet had enough time to determine what the computer system's capabilities were. "It may be that people don't know what the system can do," she said. After two years of training?
Now, neighbors, you need to remember this year's budget does in fact include a capital expense of $25,000 for software for the Municipal Shop. The last two fiscal year's included $25,000 in reserve funds for building inspection software.
And it was about five (5) years ago council unanimously voted on a budget amendment to add another $160,090 to the existing $200,000 allocated to cover the purchase of new software. Or maybe it was leased software, but it totalled $360,090 plus $30,000 per year, every year, going forward for updates and maintenance and training. And it was stated to be capable of accepting credit/debit card payments as well as electronic direct deposits for payroll. Here's a Word document with relevant excerpts from council's official minutes dating back to October 4, 2005 and up through May 20, 2008. Total the numbers up for yourself -- don't take the word of some blogger.
But maybe the $500,000 number did come from the current fiscal year's budget. See this chart:
| Department |
Hardware |
Software |
Repair Labor |
Service Contracts |
TOTALS |
| General Admin |
60,500 |
61,300 |
87,500 |
77,100 |
286,400 |
| Police |
33,000 |
7,200 |
29,300 |
0 |
69,500 |
| Fire |
11,000 |
3,500 |
1,600 |
0 |
16,100 |
| Rescue |
6,000 |
3,500 |
1,600 |
800 |
11,900 |
| Inspections |
2,000 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2,000 |
| Streets |
4,000 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
4,000 |
| Planning |
3,500 |
0 |
300 |
100 |
3,900 |
| Engineering |
5,000 |
24,000 |
20,000 |
24,000 |
73,000 |
| Municipal Shop |
0 |
25,000 |
0 |
0 |
25,000 |
| P & R |
5,000 |
0 |
6,000 |
0 |
11,000 |
| Aquatic Center |
0 |
3,000 |
6,000 |
6,000 |
15,000 |
| Wastewater Plant |
8,000 |
1,000 |
6,000 |
3,250 |
18,250 |
| TOTALS |
138,000 |
128,500 |
158,300 |
111,250 |
536,050 |
If you have questions about this or that department's allocations for hardware or software expenses, service contracts or why repairs will cost so much now that a
new IT Technician position was added this year -- call a council member and ask. They should be able to tell you which items are related to the website, to new modules, for the aquatic center, for emergency services, or the
RFP for an Internet Service Provider.
Oh, and at the end of the meeting it was confirmed the citizen who spoke had absolutely no clue about what a "blog" was -- and that many he'd spoken with were too uncomfortable to come to a meeting themselves. Wonder why.