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UPGRADES: After a slow start, North Tonawanda’s online payment system has gained momentum in the past few months, reports city clerk and treasurer Scott Kiedrowski, who discussed the system in his office Thursday. DOUG BENZ/NEWS
MODERN TIMES: North Tonawanda city clerk and treasurer Scott Kiedrowski said the city’s online bill payment system has taken off in recent months, alleviating an “arcane” system that includes long lines outside his City Hall office. DOUG BENZ/NEWS

February 10, 2012

Staff Reports The Tonawanda News The Tonawanda News Fri Feb 10, 2012, 12:28 AM EST

— — Nearly one year into North Tonawanda’s new online bill payment option, City Clerk-Treasurer Scott Kiedrowski said bringing the city up to speed has paid dividends.

What he terms as Phase I of the online option has brought in more than $170,000 through e-checks and credit card payments for school, county and city taxes and water bills in the last eight months, saving on paperwork and staffing and showing the demand for electronic payments.

When the option was first introduced in May, payments trickled in but have more recently turned into a virtual flood.

And while the traditional methods of paying at the automated kiosk in city hall or mailing in a bill payment are still available, inevitably, those numbers will continue to dissolve as the city moves into the 21st Century.

A 25-year system associated with overbloated stacks of paperwork and long lines at the clerk’s office described by Kiedrowski as “arcane,” will continue to dwindle, as a world that is increasingly tied to the electronic age becomes ever more advanced.

“We’re very paper heavy,” he said, of his office.

The days of handwritten traffic violations may soon come to an end as well.

Two officers will receive a handheld device in the next week or so that will electronically record a bar code from registration stickers at traffic stops and parking violations. The information retrieved will be linked to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.

Kiedrowski said it will streamline the process as well as allow for those who are issued violations to pay for them online. In the coming years all officers are expected to put away their traffic tickets and use such a scanner.

By the spring, Kiedrowski said the city should add the option to pay for hunting, fishing and marriage licenses along with birth and death certificates to the growing list of items that can be taken care of online.

“Right now it’s cash only,” Kiedrowski said. “Once the parking ticket component goes live we’ll move into the rest of it.”

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