Wednesday, March 26, 2003

Peachtree City is in pretty good financial shape, according to Councilman Steve Rapson at the March 6 City Council meeting. That is one of the reasons he gave for providing $5,000 for the Dog Park. He also stated he would be willing to provide the entire $14,000.

Apparently the city is in good financial shape because at the March 20 City Council meeting the council voted unanimously to give away revenue generated from city court fines. They approved online payment of court fines [see story this issue], which allows people to pay fines by credit card rather than by cash, check or money order.

The city finance director estimated the credit card discount fee to be 3 percent. That means for each fine paid by credit card, the city gives 3 percent to the merchant service company processing the credit card transaction. So for each $100 fine, the merchant service company receives $3 and the city receives the remaining $97. That's a $3 loss in city revenues.

The finance director also said the fine administration fee would be increased from $2 to $5. Councilman Rapson pointed out that it is illegal to charge a fee to recover the credit card discount fee. The fine administrative fee can be used to purchase the software and equipment needed to process the credit card payments, and for staff administration to process the payments. It cannot be used to recover any portion of the 3 percent discount fee.

Peachtree City's coffers must be awash with money for the council to give away $3 per $100. I look forward to seeing long-delayed projects placed back in the budget, and Mayor Brown can stop complaining about budget shortfalls.

John Dufresne

Peachtree City