Iolans will soon be able to pay their utility bills online.
City Council members approved Monday a contract with Information Network of Kansas (INK) to accommodate online payments, at no cost to the city.
Instead, customers will be charged 2.5 percent of the total paid via credit card, or $1.50 for online check, said City Clerk Roxanne Hutton.
The city will continue to offer at no charge payments by credit card and checks like it’s done all along, Hutton explained. The city also offers to receive credit card payments over the phone, and automatic draft from a checking account.
The online bill payments allow a customer to do so at any hour of the day, Hutton said.
Payments to the Iola Recreation Department for various activities also can be done through INK, Hutton said.
THE CITY will not enact cost-of-living pay raises to its employees in 2016, because the Consumer Price Index — which also determines if Social Security recipients will get more money each year — remained level in 2015.
However, the city had already planned for a pay increase of 2 percent, City Administrator Carl Slaugh said.
Council members will discuss whether some employees could potentially still see pay raises in light of the city’s recently completed wage study. The study indicated that some Iola employees were paid as much as 7 percent less than their counterparts at other municipalities across the state.
The original plan was to adjust salaries to get in line with the study over a three-year period, although Council members favored doing it at a slower rate in light of a tight budget for 2016.
More study is needed, the Council agreed.
THE COUNCIL approved a demolition permit for a dilapidated house at 706 N. Washington Ave., and approved a work order for 824 E. Jackson Ave. Permits must be let within the next 30 days, or the house also faces condemnation and demolition, Code Enforcement Officer Shonda Jefferis noted.
SLAUGH is looking for a few good volunteers to serve on the city’s Tree Board and the Iola Housing Authority Board.
The tree board, which at one time had five members, has none, Slaugh said.
Meanwhile, Iolans Ray Shannon and Dorothy Saxton have left their posts on the Housing Authority Board.
Anyone interested in serving on either board should call the city at 365-4900.
A JOINT MEETING with the USD 257 Board of Education, in which both governing bodies listened to a presentation by Mark Fenton, one of the country’s foremost experts on creating safe, walkable, bike-friendly communities, prefaced the city council meeting.
Fenton has been in Allen County since Sunday, and spoke extensively about how U.S. 54 could be made safer to both motorists and pedestrians.
(A full recap of Fenton’s presentation will be in Wednesday’s Register.)
The discussion should lead the city to consider changes to the highway, particularly from the old hospital curve to downtown, Councilman Jon Wells said.
“We know U.S. 54 needs a lot of work from the base up,” Wells said. “We can start thinking about this in a constructive manner.”
Some urgency may be needed because the old hospital is being demolished, with plans to build a grocery store and apartments or townhouses in the vacant lot, a move which could significantly increase traffic along that stretch of highway.
