Property taxes in Milford have been issued and the city is working to be sure online options for payment are working properly
At a recent meeting, City of Milford Finance Director, Lou Vitola, provided council with an update on the FY23 audit as well as the transition between one bill payment module to another. The transition has caused some issues when customers try to pay bills in person or online.
“The fiscal 23 audit. I’ve got good news there, the final adjusted trial balance, along with 100 percent of the three dozen or so required audit schedules were submitted to the auditors. The auditors are going to confirm the field work and testing dates, but they should happen in in September,” Vitola said. “Plan is to keep on schedule. We’re transitioning to prep for fiscal 24 to try to stay on that schedule, and our plan to get caught up for the 24 fiscal year in customer service, training and testing on the new tax module, continued into August.”
Vitola explained that property tax bills were sent and that those revenues would appear on reports starting in September. The city also went live with a new process for paying vendors after testing the previous month with great success.
“But on the same talk topic of payments, we instituted a new internal control, and the finance department designed others to further strengthen what we believe are already very strong internal controls related to cash outflows,” Vitola said. “Bill [Pettigrew, IT Director] doesn’t know it, but we instituted this in part based on centralized IT security risks that he shares to all staff that he finds from central reporting services. So, Bill, that’s more helpful than you know. Thank you for that. And also, a recommendation we got from a staff member.”
Vitola continued that he would not disclose all the steps taken in the area of risk mitigation and fraud protection, but that the city was continually looking for ways to protect their financial data, even though they already had many strong protections in place.
“I have a question. I had a resident call me about making his tax payment at customer service,” Mayor Todd Culotta said. “He wanted to use a credit card, and he couldn’t do it there. They told him to go home and do it online. What is the reason we can’t take a credit card in person?”
Vitola was unaware that credit card payments were not being taken at the customer service office, stating that it could have been during the migration to the new system as the department was currently juggling two different systems as they try to get them to merge completely.
“I can address that,” Pettigrew said. “I know one of the credit card terminals was actually defective and had to be sent back but there were some others that needed firmware updates. So my staff worked with customer service to get it back up and running. As far as I know, as of this morning, we are back at 100 percent.”
Councilwoman Nirmala Samaroo asked if there was any other solution for paying an electric bill other than online or in person with a check. Vitola stated that if the office is open, customers can call the office and pay over the phone. Councilwoman Katrina Wilson pointed out that she had been calling in to pay city bills for years with no issue.
“If we are open, yes, you can call,” Vitola said. “You can call in and make a payment over the phone, but I believe that may be only for taxes at the moment. We are working on getting a system up and running that would allow us to take phone payments regardless of office hours.”
Mayor Culotta confirmed that the city was moving toward a fully automated system that would make things easier for customers. Councilwoman Madula Kalesis asked if the online portal to pay property taxes was currently live and Vitola stated that it was, but that they had not pushed it because there have been some issues with conversion.
“I ask because I do all my paperwork on Monday,” Councilwoman Kalesis said. “I tried to log in because I wanted to pay it online and there was nothing there. Again, I do all my paperwork on Monday, and I figured I would look and pay it online just to get it out of my head, and it was not up and running.”
Vitola stated that he would check on the portal and have customer service run through the process to be sure it was up and running.
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