City reinstates online utility payment option

Residents can now pay their utility bills online again after the payment system was restored.

Customers may pay online or via telephone. The recent bills were sent the week of Jan. 11 through Jan. 15. These bills did not include payments made on or after Dec. 1, 2020.

Autopay will resume Feb. 2.

In other business, the City Council unanimously approved the administrative budget for fiscal year 2021-22 last Friday during a special meeting. It also unanimously approved the proposed payment schedule for the city.

This move is required since the dissolution of the Shafter Community Development Agency, as the Successor Agency took over the city's administrative operations.

By state law in 2012, all cities in the state were required to dissolve their respective Development Agencies. The agencies oversaw the distribution of tax proceeds that would have been paid to the Redevelopment Agencies.

Currently, there is a single Oversight Board of Kern County that reviews each cities' administrative budgets and distribution of proceeds from property taxes paid to it.

Each city is allowed to claim an administrative budget of at least $250,000, which is the amount approved for Shafter.

Present at the meeting were Mayor Cathy Prout, Pete Espinoza and Cesar Lopez. Council members Gilbert Alvarado and Chad Givens were absent with excused absences.