At a future meeting of the Perry City Council, they will be amending an ordinance related to their franchise agreement with Alliant Energy.

Instead of a sales tax on utility bills, the City has a franchise agreement with Alliant that puts a 2% tax on anything they sell. At first, the process was cumbersome for Alliant to collect the money and then distribute it to the City, so they put an additional .06% charge on bills as an administrative fee. However, City Administrator Sven Peterson says that fee is no longer needed. “It’s gotten to the point for them that there’s enough cities, and you know technology has come a long way in such a short time, that it really isn’t necessary for them to charge that .06%. So they’re asking us to redo our ordinance for their franchise agreement, and basically take out that fee for them.”

Peterson admits the change may not be that noticeable for customers, but says a small reduction in fees is better than none.