Green Think

(Here's a guest blog from my wife, Gerianne Wright, who pays the bills in the family. Her commentary is in response to the P-R story: City residents can pay bills online now. Check the details at the City of Plattsburgh and the city's Pay Online Site.)

I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to learn that the Plattsburgh Municipal Lighting Department was finally joining the rest of the world by equipping itself to accept on-line bill payment options.

I was quick to sign up.

What I wasn’t thrilled about was the discovery that this so-called convenience was going to cost me nearly $15 in fees each month if I pay online with a credit or debit card or $2.40 each month if I pay by e-check.

If you venture onto the site, you’ll see it’s managed by a third-party collection agency, which makes its money by charging the fees.

Jack and I have three accounts with MLD – two electric and one water/sewer. Because the system is not set up to pay them collectively, I have to pay each separately, thereby being assessed a separate fee for each bill. Each credit or debit card transaction is $4.95; each e-check transaction is 80 cents.

I’ve always lobbied for on-line payment options with MLD, or, at the very least, pay-by-phone methods that would allow you to pay by card. My objection to the outdated paper method of payment was that you were essentially assessed a tax to mail your bill. Even though it’s only the price of a postage stamp, those “Forever Stamps” will forever go up in price. Right now they’re 44 cents. That comes to $5.28 a year to mail your bills each month, provided the cost of a postage stamp remains forever at 44 cents, and that’s unlikely to happen.

However, I can write one check and put all three bills in the MLD envelope and mail it for that one postage stamp, as opposed to paying 80 cents per electronic check – or, in my case, $2.40 – every month. That’s nearly $29 a year.

The MLD office does have the option of paying your bill in person, whether you go inside the building or through the drive-up window or drop the bill in the payment slot. But that trip takes time and gas. I have no idea how much gas, but I certainly know how much time.

To its credit, MLD is now offering clients the opportunity to go paperless for the first time, giving those of us who are taking care of our responsibilities electronically the option to save a few trees and some carbon emissions. However, if I have to pay a fee to respond to the electronic reminder that my bill is ready to pay online, I’d rather get the hard copy to mail and save myself a few bucks.

Most MLD customers have an electric bill and a water/sewer bill – two accounts that will cost you $9.90 a month for credit; $1.60 a month for e-check. If you don’t mind the fee for convenience’s sake, God bless you. I can think of other things to do with my $178.20 a year, like maybe pay one month’s MLD bills?