Oh, he lets you off the hook.

All right.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome back.

We are moving on to part two of four for today.

Joined by the same group of counselors with Commissioner Nestry and Vicky Voss joined us for the Department of the Treasury, which is more commonly known as the City Payments Center.

We are on page 87 for the counselors.

And I'll turn it back over to you all to give us an intro of the payments center and what it does, how it connects to everything, and then we'll jump in with some of the details.

Sure.

City Payment Center, also known as the Treasury, is where we collect the money.

We collect and process tax payments, water payments, parking payments, the new school zone payments.

We process the cash payments here at the city.

We have a lot of people who pay cash.

So I said let's make it easy for people to pay.

And we made an agreement to collect cash payments here for those kinds of violations.

We also do the billing for the Syracuse Police Department for all the overtime they work at, like the dome or individual security details throughout the city.

If somebody's property is broken into at three o'clock in the morning, the city has a gentleman in DPW who's on call, not a job I'd want.

But he'll go out at three o'clock in the morning and board up the broken windows, so further damage isn't uh experienced.

We do bill for the service because we don't get plywood for free, and the guy doesn't work for free.

So we bill for the board ups, we bill for the cut and cleans.

Those are properties that are either not maintained by owners or um the owner is you know MIA, vacant lots that you can't figure out who owns it.

They need to be cleaned of either litter or they need to be mowed, overhanging branches need to be trimmed.

Um if it's a major cleanup, we also bill for those.

Um that involves um and Andy Jacobowski and his crew where they take a bunch of trucks and you know get they sometimes have to get the police out there to tow illegal vehicles.

I mean, it's you know, it's what when the lots are really a big big mess.

Uh we bill for the demolitions that the city does for the emergency repair program.

And we bill for the pilots and shelters.

Those are payments in lieu of taxes, agreements that uh SIDA and the city has made um for um to improve development uh shelter rents are for um section eight housing entities that um have an agreement with the city, they pay a lower base rate based because they are government uh subsidized.

So uh basically we have uh five cashiers, um eight control clerks, three uh information aids, and we answer any questions constituents call about any of the aforementioned types of bills that we send out.

Uh we do research um if there's questions.

Um sometimes uh there might be a mistake on the tax bill, whether for whatever reason, um, and we work with assessment to get those um corrected and bring them to you and we have them corrected.

We also do the uh municipal sidewalk billing, um, and that goes on the tax roll.

All of the um board ups, cleanups, ERPs, um, demolitions, um, municipal sidewalk.

All of these things have to be updated every year.

We roll any onto taxes that as of April 1st have not been paid.

Um if we bill it on April 1st, we figure by the time somebody mails it in and gets it to us, then we're really getting too close to the cutoff in May for the tax roll.

So we do that.

We do add uh late charges as announced on the bill.

So if someone doesn't pay, we do add it to the tax roll.

If they don't pay the taxes, then they are seized.

So or they're uh potentially seized, I should say.

Um that's a good overview.

We get emails from people, we get letters.

Uh we did the tax trust program, is a big deal for us.

Um managing uh delinquent taxes.

Uh we've been had real good uh results collecting delinquent taxes, working with people who in a lot of cases really can't afford their homes anymore because you know everything goes up, right?

And if they're living at particularly people living on a fixed income, which most of us are, um just depends on how high it is, but you know, there are uh particularly elderly people, senior citizens who um are challenged to pay their all their bills.

Yeah.

Okay, is you a question?

Of course.

You work with assessment, right?

Sure, we're how behind are you?

How behind are you?

Well, people who are taxed delinquent.

And then well, we have a couple of committees that work in that, and it's not just us in assessment, it's NBD uh law.

Uh we work, we have a group that meets um, I guess it was like four years ago I was talking about it, and then Nader and I uh brought it, resurrected it.

It was to look at all the properties that owe the most amount of money.

I found a lot of properties are tax delinquent.

I have one paper.

It's been no, it's been over two years now.

And it's still, and he knows when I'm in and Commissioner OJ, you know where I'm talking about.

And I don't know why to this date that the base they are not paying taxes.

Maybe Commissioner, you want to talk about it.

Why we have not seized that property and a few other properties.

And I know about while we gotta go through the process what two years.

Um I mean, it's become a squatter's village.

And how much is the city taxpayers are paying?

When you gotta board up those about boarded up constantly, and I have to use police resources.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

Apologize for my atoll.

I wasn't gonna say today, Matt OJ, Commissioner of Assessment.

Um, as Vicky notes, as deputy commissioner notes, we've been working, I think, uh across a number of departments on this, making some good headway, although it's much slower than we'd like when we're talking about uh delinquencies from 1955 can be a difficult thing to piece back together.

Um in the case of the property you're referencing.

Uh the TP and RP are on my desk right now, and we anticipate to seize on the 16th.

Okay.

How far back do records go with enough you know, fidelity or enough um, you know, accuracy that we you know, we can actually accuracy is excellent.

I think you know they get spotted.

We were looking for the 1996 tax and assessment roles recently to cure, I think our number two scoff law.

Um, and couldn't find that role.

Um, but we could also go down to the basement right now and find a role from 1890, I think.

So it gets a little scatter shot.

We've got to go to assessment records going back to 1936.

Um there can be gaps, especially in the rolls, I think.

Yeah, I think big picture, I think that that gap between what we're billing for and what we're collecting.

Is something that I have on my mind.

And again, can I read state?

I think I believe it's a hearing in a row that we have a budget that's actually decreased year over year.

So again, I think that you know on a compliment people for trying to control costs.

But then I really believe our conversation has to focus on that other half of the equation, you know, and when we're billing and not collecting, that's money that we're leaving out on the table.

Um what are collection rates have been excellent.

And I was gonna say were we doing well.

Um I'd be happy to get you uh a report that shows that we have consistently increased collection every single year since I have been here.

Wow.

What do you attribute that to?

And what are you doing well?

Compliment yourself.

Uh we work with people.

We explain the seizure process.

Um I do go after people with deep pockets, and um, you know, I try to make sure that the city gets paid what it's been billed.

Um I work very closely with Kathy Murphy on the pilot programs.

Um those were not being collected timely, and late charges weren't being assessed, and I'm sure um the interim commissioner can share if you have it available, but maybe not.

Um the the late charge income has gone up dramatically because we actually charge it.

Um it it was never added before.

Um we also the the true-ups um where the contract stipulates that you're supposed to pay a certain amount um your bills a certain amount if you produce financial statements for the shelter rents and you actually made more money um than the contract um requires that it's a 10% of net um shelter rent minus utilities, and that's what you would pay.

That's more than we build you, we bill you that too.

So we are um trying to take advantage of every opportunity to collect money for the city.

So in a situation, oh, go ahead.

In a situation, because I have one in my district right now where people abandon just abandon their house.

I found them, they moved to Virginia, but they don't respond to calls or anything.

Um, how do you get money from them?

Like they obviously don't care, they just left the house.

Well, in some situations, we're not gonna collect because there are there are some people that just um often it's out of state landlords that come in, buy property, they put no money into the property, they have tons of code violations and fines that they're not gonna pay, they don't pay their taxes, they so we're left with a shell, you know, a property that is inhabitable and owes tons of money, nobody's gonna buy it.

So, you know, and in some cases it's gotten so bad that we then have to pay to demolish it, right?

For public safety, right?

So those that class of people who you know got the property basically and take the money and run, they're never gonna pay us.

So the best thing we can do is identify them as quickly as possible and proceed with the seizure process and get someone in there who is either going to fix up the property or is going to and pay the taxes.

Give me one second, one second, because it's the same line of questioning.

I was just gonna ask you, you know, what's the timeline between us somebody knowing they need to pay to cease the property?

That's what I was about to ask.

Can you just explain that part for people watching as well?

Yep.

So the city has a seizure process, and that is um spearheaded by the neighborhood and business development department.

So they identify properties that are either good for um to but you know, good for development, like you know, you got four houses that are about to be demolished on one street.

Hey, maybe that'll make a nice apartment building.

I don't know all the thoughts that go behind it, you know, city planners.

So they identify which lots they put a phase through, and they say these are the these are the properties we want to focus on.

Those properties get the first thing they do is because it's a legal requirement, they send a 60-day notice out saying you have 60 days to pay up your taxes, or we all we will seize we will begin seizure process.

Um the seizure process itself takes anywhere from six to nine months, sometimes longer, depending on you know if they can't get a hold of anybody.

Um that is a question better asked to NBD and the folks in the law department, Akira Tomlinson and those guys who actually you know do that day-to-day.

Um but you know, that's that 60-day notice when it goes out, that's when I start getting phone calls because it's it's a pretty scary letter.

It's you know, uh worded in a way to get your attention and get you to call up and see what you can do about getting your taxes current.

That's when we start working with people with um either a tax trust or maybe they only owe a couple of years, we can get them to redeem the property.

Um let me just back you up just a little bit.

Um, because there's a part that you um missed.

The the um process starts two and a half years into tax delinquency, correct?

So that's what that's just for for the people watching.

So once a property is two and a half years um going into three years tax delinquent, that's when the letters start to go out.

So individuals, and I only wanted to get that out because a lot of people believe that the land bank takes their properties when in all actuality people are tax delinquent, and the city is the one foreclosure on the property.

So within two and a half years, the city starts to send out those letters, and I mean, frankly, they get probably a year's worth of letters, it seems like to me.

Um, but that's I just wanted to backgap that up a little bit.

No, it's absolutely true.

And um, you know, we have people calling up.

I mean, even people who just get slightly behind get nervous.

Um, you know, those are the more conscientious folks that you know they they know that they've you know missed a couple of payments and um or maybe they have one tax lien.

So we work with them to try and you know get a I mean it could be simple as you know, take a money order every month and put it to one side, commissioner of finance, and then after so many months you come in, you can pay that lien off, and then it's gone.

But you know, just just simple um ideas that we um work with taxpayers, we refer them to the um financial empowerment center for help because you know it's not just that people don't necessarily have the money, but some people don't really understand budgeting, and you know how to you know it's if you don't have the money, you don't have the money, the budgeting isn't gonna help you.

But if if you could work with the financial empowerment center and identify things that maybe you could spend less money on or different ways to manage your money, maybe your home would be more affordable for you.

So that's another resource that we use.

Vicky, you talked about a couple different things.

You talked about difference in payment between shelter rent build and shelter rent.

Um due pursuant to the contract.

Uh and then you talked about late fees not being added to you know certain bills.

Are there other instances of over sites out there within our system that where we could recoup, right?

Um I try to identify as many as possible and take advantage of them.

Um the the late charges were something I worked with Brad O'Connor when he was here, which was four years ago.

Um, so we've been doing it for all that time.

Um I don't know what I don't know.

Right.

And so that wasn't meant to be critical.

That was thinking about return on investment of money.

If we gave you an additional position, would that salary make itself back in terms of what we could recoup from who knows what else?

I'd have to do an analysis of that.

I think that um we are well staffed.

I have a very hard working team, nobody likes to sit around and play on their phone, they don't like to, you know, they work.

Um, and the day goes quicker when you're busy.

So you know, we have we help out the um parking violations bureau and they can't get their tickets done if we have some lag time.

So, you know, we try to keep busy.

Um, I don't know that we need additional staff, uh, except that this new program with um the school zone uh has um unexpectedly um provided us with a huge number of refunds that we have to process, very um time consuming process for not only ourselves, but then of course the council payable has to uh send a check, and so um we we are working at incorporating that in our existing workflow, and hopefully won't need to be asking for additional staff, and we haven't in the four and a half years I've been here.

Um the only thing I can see as far as something that we could cut, and I have brought this to council before, is the um fees that the city pays for um booting when um the registered owner is charged a $50 fee, and then the city pays a 28% fee on all of the outstanding parking tickets, which I believe if we look at my uh budget, you'll see I think that's a couple hundred thousand dollars a year that the city is paying to subsidize the parking tickets that um the booting, the people that get booted for parking tickets.

And I do know that raise that fee last year.

We did not we're waiting for the automated enforcement to potentially get tied into the bringing that to you.

Um we are working now with paylock to incorporate the um school zone fee um fines.

Um Leah Whitmer is working with law to bring that to say, yes, we can use booting, and then once we do that, we're um hoping to maybe raise the booting fee a little bit and reduce the um the fee that we pay um the percentage on those tickets quite a bit.

And I believe we had it on the agenda for a while, but then it got withdrawn in order to tie more things together.

Exactly right.

And we did a short-term extension.

We didn't.

Vicki, when you said um the you guys are now doing a bunch of refunds, is that to paylock or is that to residents?

So it is paylock has nothing to do with it currently.

This is the the um school zone fines for um running a uh red light speeding or passing uh stopped school bus.

And those fines um it's been challenging uplifting this program.

Um the thing that we found uh because of the way they accept payments, they get their payments in a lock box, and the lock box doesn't have access to their information.

So they get a payment, it's processed, it's deposited in an account that belongs to us.

And so if the pay, if a person was ticketed, is we all read the paper, there was some woman that got three speeding tickets, but it was on a day that school was either canceled early or snow day or something.

The information got to the vendor.

Um I'm not sure what the timeline was because I don't have any um interaction in that.

But um what wound up happening was tickets went out.

Um and people paid them, and we have 700 tickets to refund for that for whether it was that or whether the equipment, whether we shouldn't have charged for a um uh in in a particular school zone, like the equipment wasn't ready, or which again one would have hoped that the vendor could have not approved those tickets, and then none of this would have happened, but yeah, it didn't happen, so here we are.

Now the approval of the tickets is that through SPD.

SBD approves them, but so does Yenoptic, which is the vendor.

And it's their team that should have caught it because the SPD is they're looking at um certain criteria but not the same criteria.

That's why there's two approvals.

Vicky, the the paylock, is that the professional service line?

200,000.

Yes, 203.

And one question, Vicki.

Um we had a situation where uh consent one pays their tax bill quarterly and they would send it to Bangladesh and there was a rare occasion where the check got lost and they sent it and they they finally found the original check.

Uh where do the people go when they have to dispute um like a late fine?

Do they call your office?

Yes.

Okay, because a lot of people sometimes they get lost, they don't know what to do, and they'll call me.

So I just want to us, we'll talk about it.

You were doing okay.

So I get a lot of those calls sometimes.

Yeah, okay.

One thing I will tell you is that we have very strict guidelines for lay charges because we don't want to be waiving them for every reason under the sun because everybody's got a reason, right?

Why they paid late.

Um, in the event that someone maybe mailed it, the check got lost.

We will want to see that they have stopped paid that check.

And you know, and if they show us that they've stopped paid the check and they're you know issuing another one, then we're gonna say, okay, and and we'll waive the late charge.

Um, but there's not a lot of cases, not a lot of um allowances for that.

I I would think that um a lot of people they send they do have an option, and I wish the city Syracuse would put it in their tax bills that you have the option to pay locally here.

You know, you can you know, here at City Hall, it said it's sending it to the payment center of Bayment.

You you should have an option.

I know you have the drop payment center here outside.

Sure.

And they draver, but sometimes um because we had a situation I talked to then commissioner Canada's there and he said, Well, they have the option of just mailing it here.

So maybe because you have a processing center banking.

We have very good luck with our lockbox though.

So I you know it's it's very rare that people who send things to the lockbox get.

Yeah, no, it's not that I I've just seen a lot of the elderly people that contact me sometimes.

Yeah, well, uh they can't get out.

I don't know if there's any space on the tax bill that isn't that would yeah, I that would be in a spot that they'd actually see it because we have so much.

Yeah, where they could put they can mail in here.

I had someone who actually uh he had a pay at lake fee, didn't know, and he gave me the and I and I'll bring the check down, you know.

But um I just it's one they can have the option to mail it to the commissioner finance here at City Hall.

Well, they absolutely can.

It's just how do we get that word out?

Yeah, maybe people listening today will know.

Right.

I mean, I think but that's under the suggestion.

Yeah, no, I I'll check um see if there's any room on the tax bill to add something like that.

So you know, they are welcome to come in, city payment center is open eight to five Monday through Friday.

Um we have the the drop box, which is secure and it's available 24-7 365.

Sure.

Um and of course they could mail it to us.

Well, I'd say because yeah, here to coins.

Well, I don't have I can't do it because I don't have a rule and word apart, blah, blah, blah.

So, but anyway, thank you for all you do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Um thank you again for the work that you and your staff do.

You're incredibly important in terms of city revenue.

What could we be doing to help people pay easier?

Well, I think about that all the time.

And um, I the mayor actually um suggested that we be open um until seven on Mondays because there's a CSO, there's board meetings, and there's you know, other things going on in City Hall where some of the um uh constituent facing departments like parking, my department assessment perhaps, would be open to you know, we get kind of a backlog.

People come in, everybody wants to come on their lunch hour, right?

But our staff eat too, you know.

So um that they of course they come and you know, one or two people out in the large line, and it's it's not convenient for folks.

So it would be nice to um extend our hours um to seven o'clock on a Monday that we're we're ready to do that.

Um that be over time.

No, we would um we work it out.

I pinch that penny.

We also know that there are other departments that take fees, right?

So parks takes fees, et cetera.

Are there ways that we could integrate our existing software for water bills and taxation and things of that nature in terms of having individual portals where people could keep a record of things that they have paid for or pay them with the there is portal?

There's the invoice count cloud portal, which you can pay your BAA fines, your dog license, your permit application.

You know, all these different um our dog licenses are down.

So that was an important thing to know.

Oh, is it all right?

Well, I can check with Invoice Cloud on that.

I don't know why the um that would be the clerk, I think.

But um so let me check on that.

I don't know why that's down, but it has been working, so um, I don't think the system's down.

Oh, now money is down.

No, sorry, didn't mean to panic you there.

Oh, all right.

Well then I don't even know them.

The way we could increase people's ability to pay is there so yeah, they mean they can they can pay them right here at City Hall.

Um items that they pay, like to the parks department, the parks department does what we call a cash report, it's an outline detailing what is this these what are these checks that you're sending, and they get forwarded to um city payment center for processing.

Um I think you know, we we do like I say, we accept online payments, we accept in-person payments.

Um we do more on reoccurring payments.

There is an option in invoice cloud if you want to pay your bills quarterly, like if you you know, your tax bills, your water bills, whatever.

Um you can choose that option.

So I'd be happy to entertain any suggestions.

Um I think that we do a good job of offering a variety of ways to pay.

Um I mean, me.

Just open to suggestions.

I mean, you see it on the day-to-day.

People do need to access services after hours when they can, you know, come in again, not just on their lunch break, which creates logjam and then online, and and if there is a way for us to reduce the cost of mailings where we're still getting the same results in terms of people paying their fines and fees and taxes, that would be fantastic.

We instituted a few mailings that um we send out, we send out a courtesy notice and just hey, by the way, you missed, you know, and some people don't this is a very real problem that I guess people don't um know about, but there are certain pockets of the city that have a very hard time getting their mail, and I think the counselors must be aware of this.

Um I don't know if it's you know one bad mailman or the process or what, but you know, if they don't get their tax bill and they don't pay their January taxes and we don't say something, people forget.

Yeah.

So we send a courtesy notice twice a year, just as a hey, by the way, you know, and then sometimes when they get their July tax bill, they'll be like, hey, I never got my jam, you know what I mean?

And so that's kind of a the bill itself is a reminder, and then we send uh you know a midpoint reminder.

We also started sending delinquent notices last year, which I was shocked that we never sent, and we found we collected quite a bit of delinquent taxes from that, so we will be doing that every year.

I don't want to cut you off.

I have one more question.

We're already over time.

Okay.

All right.

Um you can follow up with Vicky.

Um appreciate it.

She mailed me any questions.

Um want to keep towards schedule.

Can I get a motion to adjourn?

So, and let's take that one minute and then we'll transition to front.