Sugar Grove wants to e-bill for water

Sugar Grove may soon send water and sewer bills by email, and customers could then pay via credit card.

The village board Tuesday gave staff permission to spend $2,500 to buy and run software to email bills to customers and to also let them see their bills online.

And another piece of accounting software would let customers set up a recurring charge to their credit card accounts. Currently, the village only does that with checking accounts.

The goal is to save time and supplies printing and mailing the 4,100 paper bills each month, as well as the time processing payments, according to a memo from Justin Van Vooren, the village’s finance director.

Other towns in the area offer electronic billing and online bill look-up, including Batavia and Oswego. Oswego offers a free credit card payment option. Batavia uses the state’s e-Pay system, which charges the utility customer a fee based on the size of the bill, starting at $1 for a $25 bill.