Madill City Council:

Madill resident may soon be able to pay their water bills online as James Fullingim, city manager, presented a tentative plan to the Madill City Council during their regular meeting Jan. 14.

All five city council members were present: Shaunda Stanley, Bobby Davis, Travis Williams, Terry Rushing and Mary Ann Hale.

Other city staff in attendance supporting the council members were were city attorney Kristen Speer, treasurer/city clerk Carol Minor, and deputy city clerk Cindy Burchfield.

In the audience were Chief Donald Yow of the Madill Police Department and Robert Holliday from OG&E.

Fullingim shared details on how online payments could be soon be accepted by the city during his city manager’s report.

First, he called the council members’ attention to an information sheet for Payment Services Network, a vendor that provides online payments for municipalities such as Madill.

“This is the company that partners with CIC, which is the accounting software, computer system, whatever you want to call it that the City of Madill currently has because they don’t offer this online payment that we’ve been wanting to do,” Fullingim said. “But this company here has partnered with them so that um cities that will sign up with this company will work with CIC and we won’t have to change accounting software to have online bill payments. So, since we have a City of Madill website this company has built a program where it will work with CIC. It’s something we’re wanting to explore.”

Fullingim said the members cannot vote on it tonight since it not on the agenda. This is in accordance with the Oklahoma Open Records Act.

“But I want you guys to look at it cause the next meeting we have I’m wanting to have it on there.”

Fullingim started with water bill payments.

“That’s something that the majority of people have been wanting to do,” he said. “This company, there’s a lot of things about it that uh, really I’ve not seen anything I don’t like about it to be honest with you. I had a meeting on the phone with them today. And they seemed to work really well with CIC. I don’t see any problems with it.”

Fullingim said the city first considered doing online bill payments locally.

“We’ve looked at our local bank to see if they can do some online bill payments for us and they can but it’s something that requires the customer to go in and manually pay their bill online,” he said. “Put in their own account number. Put in their own amount of money that they owe and there’s a lot of mistakes that can be made.

“And it doesn’t post to CIC. We basically would get a printout of what we need to go in and then post it.”

Fullingim continued and said that Payment Services Network in conjunction with CIC will do all of that.

“I don’t wanna go over every little detail in here yet because I don’t even have it picked up exactly how I want it done but this is the information that I’ve got,” he said. “And I would like for y’all to take a really good look at it and just know that hopefully at the next meeting this will be on the agenda to vote for it after we have it put in place.”

Fullingim said once the City of Madill gives the vendor the green light it should be up and running in about 31 days.

“So once you guys vote on it, within a month, we’ll probably have the online bill payment set up,” he said. “And they can change it throughout the course of time.

“So we can start it out with MPWA and we’re taking out online bill payments for this. They can go in and change it for anything we have. It’s just MPWA is something we’re working on and really want done now.”

Fullingim said he will come up with a related proposal for the council to vote on.

Stanley was the first council member to ask about it.

“Yea, I would be really interested to know how much it is going to cost to the individual and cost us, as a monthly fee,” Stanley said. “And stuff like that.”

Fullingim responded

“Depending on what services we want is gonna be what we have to pay. I can discuss that in a minute. But as far as the individual goes if you’ll look at page three, there’s an option one and an option two. Being a city, I think that option one is something that…”

Williams injected and asked Fullinghim if customer would pay all of the fees.

“Well, yes,” was the city manager’s answer. He then began to explain.

“The reason why is we won’t collect fees,” he said. “We won’t do anything. That’s another thing I like about this company is that if you go in if you select option one where the customer pays $1.25 plus 2.95 percent of their bill.

“That goes directly to this company that pays for these services. It doesn’t get deposited into our account. We don’t have to issue a check back to this company to pay for it. Only those who use the service will have to pay for it.

“ It’s not something that the cost is passed along to cash customers. It’s all built within. Now, there are set things that we will be required to pay as an annual fee, monthly fees and things we can discuss depending on what all we want. But I think it’s gonna be very affordable.”

Stanley said she would like to see any and all things city-related to be paid online from gym memberships to tickets, everything.

Fullingim added another point.

“Unless we wanna go out and just completely overhaul the city, this is the absolute best option I’ve been able to come up with.”

Williams said he is excited about it.

Stanley chimed in.

“I am too,” she said. “I’ll be first in line. I’ve been asking about this for what five, six years now.”

If approved, the vendor will provide phone training for city employees, Fullingim said.

Also, in the city manager’s report, Fullingim said the bridge on south fifth avenue was completed.

“It was cheaper than what we thought,” he said. “The bridge is back open. It looks good and is running good.”

He added that they are waiting for bids on a remodel project with the former Worth Hotel.

“We’re still waiting on getting bids for the elevator which is one of the big remodel projects for the big two-story hotel project we’re wanting to do.”

Other items

The council approved Election Resolution #708 for Place # 2 and Place #3. A motion was made by Williams. The motion was seconded by Rushing. It passed by a vote of 5-0.

All other items needing approval on the agenda also passed 5-0.

The council approved Ordinance #962 amending the bond and fine schedule. The motion for approval was made by Davis and seconded by Hale.

This was followed by approval of the Emergency Clause of Ordinance #962.

The motion was made by Williams and seconded by Stanley.

Then, the council revisited an item that was discussed at the December meeting: the purchase of Dodge Charger police unit for $32,799.00.

Yow spoke about the vehicle briefly.

Stanley asked where it would be purchased from. Chief Yow said the cruiser would be purchased through Bob Howard in OKC.

The council approved Fullingim’s plan to mark a list of items as surplus.

“Most of it came the hotel,” he said. “We want to clean the old hotel out.”

Hale asked if the surplus sale could be open to public. Fullingim said that would be fine and he would fine with that.

A motion to approve the sale of surplus items was made by Stanley and passed unanimously.

The council also approved the purchase of a 2019 Ford F550 4x4 in the amount of $42,252.00 for the street department.

Prior to the vote, Fullingim interjected and provided an update.

“This is a a truck that we’ve been having trouble with that for a bit of time,” he said. “The actual cost is down to an even $39,000 out the door since they removed some options.”

Stanley asked where the truck would be purchases from.

Fullingim said it would be bought from Woody Ford.

The City of Madill recognized long-time city employee Doug Schneider with the Oklahoma Municiapal League (OML) Honor Roll for 25 years of service.

Fullingim gave Schneider the award.

“Long-term employees are really hard to find,” he said. “We like to reward those that stay with us.”

During the city council member remarks both Hale

Stanley mentioned the ongoing potential upgrade to equipment at the city gym. Hale said she spoke to a gym employee about the recumbent bikes that twyla would like to get.

After looking at the photo, Stanley said the bikes could be better from a liability standpoint as people wouldn’t have to swing their legs over them.