The city of Elizabethton has opened another utility payment center to help bring more convenience and options to city utility customers.
Last Tuesday, the new payment center at the Elizabethton Wal-Mart officially opened to accept city water, sewer and electric bill payments. City Manager Jerome Kitchens was the first customer to take advantage of the new payment location.
“It worked fine,” Kitchens said, of the first transaction. “We wanted to make sure everything worked and acted as it should before we started to really advertise the new location.”
Kitchens said the city had been working on adding the payment location for a few years. The other city payment options are at City Hall, the Hatcher Lane payment center, Citizens Bank, Carter County Bank, through the mail and online.
“It does get crowded sometimes at City Hall,” Kitchens said. “The layout downstairs is not designed to have a large number of people waiting in line. We just wanted to make it more convenient for our customers.”
The Wal-Mart center is located in the front of the store in the Money Center and is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Customers do have to have their bill in hand to make a payment at the new Wal-Mart location.
“A lot of people have the occasion to be at Wal-Mart,” Kitchens said. “A lot of people also do not have a checking account and like to pay in person with cash. It is a convenience factor for our customers.”
City Finance Director Debbie Kessler cautioned customers that making a payment at the new location in Wal-Mart does add a processing fee of $1 for payments to be processed in two-three days or $1.50 for next day processing.
“The city does not get any of that fee,” Kessler said. “That fee is split between the store and the company that processes the payments.”
Kessler also pointed out that any Wal-Mart with a Money Center can accept Elizabethton utility payments, as long as the customer presents their bill at the time of payment.