South Fulton’s check fee gone; disconnection policy in works

The 40 cents added onto the City of South Fulton’s utilities customers using checks to pay their bills is now discontinued following action taken Tuesday afternoon by Vice-Mayor Billy Williams, presiding in the absence of Mayor David Lamb, and Commissioners Tommy Pruett, Beatrice Wilcox and Terry Taylor.

The door was left open however to reinstate the fee, as one option to curb the thousands of dollars lost in bad checks written for utility bill payments to the city each year. Another option discussed was to not accept checks as payment.

But for now, City Manager Jeff Gabbert will prepare a draft for the Commission’s review Dec. 20, to establish a policy for disconnection of utilities services provided by the city, as a consequence of non-payment or payments made using a check writtten on an account with non-sufficient funds.

According to Gabbert, the city had no such policy in place and had been cited by the State for failure to have such a policy in place.

Also discussed during special called session Dec. 11 was the necessity to increase water and sewer rates by at least 3% to bring each of those funds “out of the red”. No action was taken however Gabbert said the increase will be required to assure compliance with the State.

The next meeting for the Commission will be regular session Dec. 20 at 5 p.m.

The meeting is open to the public.