Politics & Government

City Seeking Options for Residents to Pay with Plastic

In the last 12 months, Oak Forest has processed $735,000 in credit card transactions. Currently, the city is seeking a match for electronic data credit card payment services, which allows residents to pay various fees with a credit card.

Paying off tickets, your water bill and other city fees will continue to be as easy as swiping your credit card, once the bids for Oak Forest's credit processing needs are submitted on Aug. 31.

On Aug. 8, the City went to bid for electronic data credit card payment services, which would continue to allow residents to pay for bills and tickets with their plastic.

“Mainly water and vehicle stickers are the big ones,” said Colleen Julian, Oak Forest's finance director. “Police tickets and violations, anything like that, that we collect.”

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According to the bid sheet, ideally the program would accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover credit cards. The city will accept the lowest responsible bid and the contract will run for two years. It also states that there will be, at maximum, a two-day transaction period for every credit transaction.

There will be three locations equipped to process online transactions: the , the and the Building Department. In the last 12 months, the City of Oak Forest processed $735,000 in credit card payments, which only made up, “a very, very small percentage,” of payments, according to Julian.

Find out what's happening in Oak Forestwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Bids for the contract are due by 5 p.m. on Aug. 31, with the contract to be awarded shortly there after.


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