September 18th, 2019 by WCBC Radio
The Frostburg Mayor and City Council have made strategic investments in technology in 2018 and 2019 to improve operational efficiencies and enhance residents’ access to their municipal government. The City now offers customers the opportunity to view their tax or utility account online and customers may also initiate online payments for tax and utility bills through the City’s website, www.frostburgcity.org.
Customers may select “Tax & Utility Bill Pay” and enter the account number and unique PIN to view an account. The PIN is printed on each tax and utility bill. There is a nominal processing fee for online transactions. A flat fee of $1.05 per transaction applies for payments by e-check from a checking or savings account. The fee for debit and credit card payments will be approximately 2.95% of the total bill. For tax payments only, a flat rate of $3.95 applies per transaction if a debit card with a VISA emblem is used.
The City continues to offer customers the opportunity to enroll in ACH payments so that the balance due on utility bills can be withdrawn automatically from a checking or savings account. There is no fee for this payment option and the utility bill clearly states the date that the payment would be drawn from the customer bank account. Customers may print an enrollment form from the City website (the link is available under the Finance Department heading) or contact City Hall to request a form by mail or email.
Tax and utility customers may also sign up to receive their bills by e-mail instead of receiving printed bills in the mail. E-bills provide an option to promptly receive bills without delays through the postal service and e-billing provides financial and administrative time savings for the City. Instructions to sign up for e-billing are printed on the bills.
Additionally, the City has launched their CivicWeb Portal that provides seamless online access to the meetings of the City. Currently the Mayor and Council Work Sessions and Council Meetings are included on the CivicWeb Portal, but in the coming months, all of the board and commission meetings of the City will be included on the portal. This website, accessible by visiting the City’s website and clicking “Frostburg Meetings”, or visiting https://frostburgcity.civicweb.net/Portal/.
Meeting agendas will be available on the website, typically, at least 48 hours prior to the meeting. In addition, documents that are reviewed by the Mayor and Council during their meetings are generally published for the public to view as well. [Hint: Using the “Splitscreen” function provides the best user experience]. Minutes will be linked to each meeting following their approval.
Interested citizens are able to subscribe to the various meetings that are of interest to them. When an agenda is published or updated and meeting minutes have been approved and published, subscribers receive an email with a direct link to the meeting materials. The CivicWeb Portal offers a robust search tool as well, so that meetings can be searched by topic and filtered by meeting type and date range. Please note at this time, past meetings have not been uploaded to the Portal and information pertaining to recent years meetings will remain on the City website.
Also, by using the CivicWeb Portal, this has allowed the Mayor and City Council to transition to paperless meetings. Beginning with the September 2019 Council Meeting, Council Meetings will be held at City Place to leverage the modern audio/visual equipment that was installed earlier this year. The agenda and materials will be projected for meeting attendees to view and the Mayor and City Council will use iPad’s for all of their meeting materials. The amount of paper used for meetings will be significantly reduced.
The Mayor and Council hope that residents find these new tools helpful and offer an improved experience in interacting with the City. Questions or general feedback may be directed to cityhall@frostburgcity.org or by calling 301-689-6000.
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