TAKE THE SURVEY Recently the City of Sturgis was presented with a proposal by three area arts organizations to institute a voluntary utility bill round up program. Under this program, City of Sturgis utility customers could choose to "round up" their monthly utility bill to the next dollar, with the difference being added to a round up fund and used for a dedicated purpose. For example, if a participating customer's monthly utility bill was $55.25, the customer would pay $56.00 and $0.75 would be added to the round up fund. Participating customers would pay a maximum of $11.88 per year and should average around $6.00 total per year under the program. Similar programs are in place in various communities around the country.

As part of their consideration of this proposal, the City Commission has asked that a brief survey on the issue be developed to gather citizen feedback on the issue. The... [more]