The Alabaster Water Board has opted to allow its customers to pay their bills online at no extra cost.

The board voted 4-1 last week to approve the billing system, which will be offered to the city&8217;s 12,690 customers.

Customers will be able to pay water, sewer and garbage bills through the system using a debit or credit card, customer service administrator Kathy Palmer said.

Palmer said the new system will help the board avoid hiring an additional office worker to handle billing at a yearly cost of $45,000.

The water board will pay a one-time set-up fee of $5,644. In addition, Visa and MasterCard will both charge $1 per credit transaction through the system and 50 cents per debit transaction.

Palmer originally asked the board to approve the online payment system with a $3 service charge to help recover some of the Visa and MasterCard charges.

Water board members agreed that the service to the community was more important than breaking even on the new system.

The payment option will be available within six weeks Palmer said.

Palmer said that the online payment system will help alleviate the strains on the billing system as the number of water customers increases in the Alabaster city limits.

The number of water board customers has doubled in the past decade, Palmer said