Archive for the ‘Finance Takes Center Stage’ Category

It’s the Economy Stupid

This phrase was widely used during Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign. In order to keep the campaign on message, James Carville hung a sign in Clinton’s Little Rock Arkansas Headquarters to keep the campaign staffers focused. Although the sign was intended for campaign staffers the phrase became a national sensation and is largely considered to be the reason for Clinton’s win.
This past Monday, as I presented to the Wethersfield Town Council, several citizens voiced their concerns to the council that they were not being pro-active enough with regards to to how they were handling the towns money. The

point being that most municipalities citizens are demanding accountability.
Municipalities are not the only ones facing hard decisions. Headlines in this past Septembers Contra Costa Times included Large Numbers of Alameda, Contra Costa Taxpayers Bail on Property Tax Payments. In Alameda County,

property owners failed to pay more than 25,000 property tax bills totalling nearly $115 million, while just north in Contra Costa County a record number of homeowners failed to pay their property taxes last fiscal year, costing that

county $116 million.
Many citizens want to use their debit or credit cards for payment but most cities and counties are not offering them the option.
Accepting credit cards can help both your citizen, by offering them another method for payment and also your office, by reducing collection efforts. In fact Contra Costa County began accepting credit cards using a convenience fee

program, this fall, to try and improve their collection.
If you do decide to accept credit cards in your offices you certainly don’t want to be explaining the transaction fees in your budgets to your citizens since the majority of them are not paying by credit card. Your only really defensible

solution is to offer card acceptance AND to put the burden of the transaction cost on the citizen that CHOOSES to use their card for payment.