Schools

Online Payment System for District 196 Fees in the Works

The district has explored companies to contract with to provide one comprehensive system for families to make all their payments to the district.

After exploring options for an online fee payment system since December, the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district is narrowing in on a company to administer the system. Pending school board action, it could have the entire system ready in a year.

The district's school board was recommended on Monday to contract with TIESFeePay—the company the exploratory committee believes would provide the best system—but was not scheduled to take action until its next regular meeting.

The system would be "kind of like a shopping cart online" for families to pay all types of district fees and expenses in one central location, said Jeff Solomon, the district's director of finance and operations. The idea is to make it easier for people to make payments to the district, he said.

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While it would have to be gradually implemented, after it's fully set up parents could pay registration fees, athletics and activities fees, community education fees, lunch payments and field trip and other classroom payments from one website, Solomon said.

"It's a matter of regular business practice out there," Solomon said of online payments.

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He said the district is "ahead of the market and ahead of the game" as far as creating one central online payment system.

"That’s kind of a brand new concept in relation to schools and school transactions," Solomon said.

But one thing that is common among other school districts offering online payments is for the district to absorb credit card transaction fees, Solomon said.

In District 196, the credit card user incurs the transaction fee for online payment systems currently offered—lunch payments and community education class payments among them, Solomon said, making the district "behind the norm."

TIES FeePay has proposed a 3.89-percent transaction fee per payment.

If users didn't have to pay a transaction fee, it would provide incentive for people to use the online system and would decrease the amount of cash and checks the schools receive, Solomon said.

Internal control compliance—or, loosely, having cash and checks floating around within the district— was the one deficiency in the district's latest audit.

While there are procedures for how schools should handle getting cash and checks—say, money kids bring in to pay for a field trip—to the district office, school staff sometimes don't follow them to the letter, Solomon said, whether it's because of staffing shortages or the fact that it's a secondary aspect of their jobs that doesn't take priority.

"It's a recurring finding," Solomon said.

Limiting use of cash is "probably the best way to improve those controls," auditor Bill Lauer said at a board workshop in October.


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