A bill that I thought I had already paid was sent to collections. Do I have any options to avoid having it negatively affect my credit?

Long story short: I owed $242 to a municipal service in Arizona, it was paid, but rejected, and now has been sent to a collections agency.

Long story long: I first want to take full responsibility for not better tracking my finances in this situation. I had made the payment and, upon further inspection, the payment was denied. I am unaware if the service or my bank (Chase) denied the charge, but I incurred a fee of around $30 for it not going through, and the balance of my account was not the issue. I did not notice this until after I received the collections notice and dug into it a bit further. Again, my fault for not noticing, but still very frustrating.

I didn’t pay it initially because I was waiting to receive money from former roommates for the bill. After I received those funds, I scheduled the payment on the municipal services website, it said the payment was successful and I saw a screen showing a zero balance. I didn’t check for a receipt or check my bank statement because I foolishly believed the website. They did not contact me to let me know it fell through and now I have been sent to collections. Any thoughts on what I can do here will be greatly appreciated.

Overall this is a great learning opportunity, but my soon-to-be wife and I would like to buy a home after the wedding and I don’t want a situation like this to affect that decision negatively. Thank you for your feedback.