BOUNTIFUL–The City Council recently approved a citywide credit card policy that would pass along the credit card fee to those customers who choose that method of payment to pay city bills.

“The city spends a lot of money citywide paying what we call convenience fees,” said City Manager Gary Hill at the June 13 council meeting. “They’re the charges that credit card companies charge the credit card acceptor for the convenience of having credit card transactions. Those fees range quite a bit but it’s quite a bit more than the cost is for example to use cash or a check or direct deposit.”

The direction the council gave at that time was that those fees should be passed on to the individuals who were choosing to use the credit cards, he said. “The best example is let’s take our water rates. If a certain number of residents are using credit cards to pay their water utility bill and a certain number that are not and the city’s just paying those fees out of the general revenue received from that utility then everyone’s sort of just chipping in to pay the credit card fees that are incurred by those who are choosing to use the credit card.”

Hill said as they went down that path to begin implementing the policy, they found an anomaly that created a bit of a problem. “In every case in other city departments they can also use another form of payment.so they can avoid paying the credit card fee. The only exception to that is on the golf course with our tee time reservations.”

Prior to COVID customers could book a tee time and no fee was collected in advance, said Hill. “There were a significant number of no shows. During COVID we implemented a prepaid tee time. It had the advantage of dramatically decreasing no shows.”

It’s been fantastic, he said. “It was adopted by nearly all of the golf courses in Davis County or by many of the ones who are closest to us. When golfers show up they’re ready to golf. If they’re using a golf cart they just get the key and they’re off. No lines and it allows for reduced staff.”

The disadvantages for golfers is they are sort of committed, Hill said. “We like that. But now the only way to reserve a tee time is on our website unless they call the day of. Otherwise even if they call it’s booked through our website. It incurs a credit card fee but they don’t have an option that we’re requiring of everybody else if they book a tee time in advance or day of.”

Hill said they do have a way to separate the pro shop purchases. “If people come in and buy a shirt or something we can pass along that credit card fee or they can pay another way or come back and bring cash.”

Utah is a unique place compared to the rest of the country, said Kent McComb, Bountiful Ridge Golf Pro. “Most are private courses. In Utah most of the courses are public with a few country clubs out there. So patrons in Utah have a lot of choices. We try in any way we can to be competitive and do all we can to keep people coming to our course and not have them going down the road to another course.”

“At other courses nobody passes along the credit card fee on top of the green fee,” said Hill. “Golfers are a unique clientele. It doesn’t take much for them to get frustrated and go somewhere else.”

Hill said when golf course fees were addressed the credit card fees were part of the calculation to recover the cost of those fees.

“When people prepay online or by phone and cancel we are charging a fee to recoup some of those credit card fees,” said McComb. “If the credit card company charges a fee to refund it we pass that along to the customers.”

Staff is recommending and asking that the Council approve the absorbing of credit card fees at the golf course as part of the budget expenses, just as it has always been done, said Hill. “The credit card fees will represent part of operating costs, just like they always have.”

The councilmembers all expressed approval of the change to the policy.