Schools

By the Numbers: Online Fee Payments in District 196

The Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district compiled a comparison of online payments made during the past two school years, and made predictions for a potential first year with its proposed comprehensive online fee management system.

Pending Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district board approval on Nov. 28, the district .

While better customer service to district families is a main goal of the measure, it also aims to decrease the amount of cash and checks floating around at district schools, Director of Finance and Operations Jeff Solomon said.

has a few areas—community education, food service, transportation and athletic activities—in which families can make online payments now, but a roadblock to garnering more use is that those systems tack on a transaction fee for the credit card holder.

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The administration's proposal—on which the board is slated to vote Nov. 28—is for the district to absorb transaction fees as part of the new system, and to not increase service or activity fees for district families.

With a new system that eliminates transaction fees for payees, the district estimates about $5 million made in online payments to start with, board member Rob Duchscher said at Monday's school board meeting.

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At a 3.89-percent rate for transaction fees, transaction fees would total a little less than $200,000 in a year.

"Personally, I think it's great that we do this," Duchscher said. But, he asked, "How do we get this to a net-zero-cost program?"

From 2009-10 to 2010-11, the number of online fee payments and the total dollar amount of those payments to District 196 has increased, according to district documents (attached).

Families made about $3.41 million in online fee payments in 2009-10, and $3.63 million in 2010-11, documents show.

Transaction fees amounted to more than $118,000 and $144,000, respectively, during those years, respectively—an increase of more than 15 percent.

The district already contracts with TIES FeePay, the proposed company to handle the online fee payment system, so it wouldn't pay any additional money for its services, Solomon said Monday.

Duchscher asked on Monday about adding an additional expense to the district budget at a time when things like class sizes are at issue.

"How are we going to handle these costs and control them so they don't get out of hand?" Duchscher said.


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