Technology
The Mayor and City Commission have made technology an important focus for the City of Tallahassee. As the capital city of the fourth largest state in the United States, the Mayor believes Tallahassee businesses and citizens should have access to the latest technology and emphasizes this in all his policy making decisions.
The Mayor, City Commission and City Departments have integrated technology into your Tallahassee city government in a variety of forms:
Digital Canopy
Tallahassee has great economic potential and untapped infrastructure resources. The technology sector has been identified as a means to realize our economic potential as a capital city, housing two major universities at a crossroads of the Internet backbone. We believe that Tallahassee businesses and citizens are willing to embrace innovative technology solutions to provide our community with a distinct competitive advantage among southern cities for government efficiency, enhanced education and business growth. The need for physical connectivity to electrical current and Ethernet cable for Internet Access is rapidly coming to an end
To position our City for this coming technology revolution, starting back in January of 2002 the City of Tallahassee was one of the original partners in creating the Digital Canopy wireless broadband (WiFi) project in the downtown area. The City of Tallahassee has contracted with Hayes Computer Systems to maintain the Digital Canopy.
Our WiFi service is available at the Tallahassee Regional Airport and covers the terminal area.
For connection instructions and additional information, visit the Digital Canopy site.
Revenue Division Electronic Initiatives
The Revenue Division has been very aggressive in implementing electronic initiatives to provide quality customer service and to insure that the Revenue Division staff can continue to process the increasing volume of transactions without increasing staff. The volume of utility payments, parking ticket payments, business tax payments, accounts receivable payments, and many other revenue transactions has steadily increased over the years; however, the number of employees that are processing these payments has remained virtually the same. Even though these electronic initiatives have been necessary for the Revenue Division to keep up with the transaction volume, the major reason for these processes is to provide our citizens with technological capabilities that support our commitment to quality customer service. These customer service efficiencies have been accomplished with the increased utilization of technology to replace manual processes that is available for use 24 hours a day 7 days a week. The purpose of this memo is to highlight some of the electronic initiatives that have been implemented and to identify the technology enhancements that are scheduled for the near future.
Electronic Payment Processing
The Revenue Division has implemented four (4) electronic payment processes that are fully integrated into the Utility Billing System (CIS) thereby eliminating any manual processing of these electronic payments:
- Bank Draft - In 1993, we implemented the ACH bank draft program. With this program customers can enroll in the bank draft program and their monthly utility bill will be paid via a bank draft debit.
- Ebox - In 1998, the federal government mandated that providers of governmental services become electronic data interchange (EDI) compliant to receive electronic remittances. Additionally, the private sector (banks and bill payment services) began a new bill payment model allowing customers the ability to pay on-line (Internet).
- Western Union (formerly SpeedPay) - One of our most successful electronic initiatives has been the Western Union option. Customers can pay their utility bill over the Internet or the telephone using credit cards, debit cards, or e-checks. Just as the bank draft and Ebox payments, all of the Western Union payments are transmitted on a file and are automatically posted to CIS without any manual processing.
- Electronic Agency Payments – The City of Tallahassee has for many years been involved with several agencies that provides utility financial assistance to low income or financially challenged customers. To eliminate cumbersome manual processes, the Revenue Division devised an electronic payment and invoicing system and has reduced the required staff hours from 190 hours monthly to approximately 5 hours monthly.
With the implementation of these four electronic payment options, over 17% of the total utility payments are being paid through electronic options.
Other Electronic CIS Transactions
- Utility Turn-Ons - In July 2001, the Revenue Division expanded the Western Union (formerly SpeedPay) payment system to fully automate the utility service initiation process. This process allows utility customers to "turn-on" their City of Tallahassee utility services on the Internet through Western Union and pay their utility deposit on the Internet through Western Union.
- Utility Transfer/Stop Service - Another spin-off of the Western Union system is the transfer/stop service process. In April 2004, the Revenue Division further expanded the Western Union process to allow utility customers the ability to transfer utilities from one address to another address or stop utility services at an address on a desired date.
Electronic Parking Citation Payments
The next electronic initiative that is being implemented is the capability for a customer to pay their City of Tallahassee parking citations on the Internet through Western Union (formerly SpeedPay). This capability should be implemented sometime between the end of January 2005 and the end of March 2005. This new electronic initiative will allow customers to pay a single parking citation or look up all the citations for a specific tag number and pay all of the citations with one transaction. This process should reduce the number of customers that pay in person and like the other electronic processes will be available 24-7 and will be downloaded into the parking application without any manual processing.
Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment (EBPP)
A major step in providing electronic customer service to the utility customer is a full-blown EBPP system. Many utility companies and other major corporations have implemented EBPP to give their customers the option of receiving and paying their bill/invoice electronically. This concept is a very desirable customer service feature and can eventually create a cost savings through a reduction in paper, envelopes, printing, postage, and labor to process the paper bills.
Miscellaneous Electronic Initiatives
Citizens do not use some of the other electronic initiatives that have been implemented but these initiatives greatly improve the efficiency of the revenue processing operation. A few of these electronic initiative are:
- Automated Cashiering System
- Automated Mail Processing
- Remote Revenue Reporting
- Returned (Bad) Check Process
Other Initiatives
- Police Information Management Systems
- Technology Integration Project