Garrettsville – The Garrettsville Board of Public Affairs met Monday, June 8th to review, among other things, a proposed change to Water Department billing that would bring the billing for water usage into alignment with sewer billing. Currently a water customer looking at their bill in June will see water usage for April, and sewer usage from May. The BPA wants to fix that as part of their move to a new billing system.
At the meeting, Jeff Sheehan, Water Superintendent, provided the backstory for the current billing situation. For years the meter reading was done manually. Water Department employees would go door-to-door writing down usage data, accumulating the data, and handing it off to the clerical staff to create the bills. The water and sewer bills were then sent out twice a year. Eventually the BPA moved to quarterly billing to ease the financial burden on customers – requiring about 60 days for recording and processing water usage and de-synchronizing the water and sewer billing. Today the village water meters are read dramatically faster, taking about 1.5 hours, and the data is processed within two days.
Under the plan approved at the June 8th meeting, the BPA will choose a month this fall to add a catch-up charge to the water bill. The bill in this month will show the usual metered water charge, the previous month’s sewer charge, and a second “base-rate” water charge (about $25-$35 for an average residential household) to cover usage in August —resynchronizing every customer’s water bill with their sewer bill moving forward. Under the plan the “catch-up” charge would be for water service only and would not include any surcharges for the heavy users (schools, laundromats, etc.)
“The timing for this is exceptional,” said Sheehan, “with our new billing software [we’re transitioning to] we have access to start-up and training personnel who are working with Village staff to create this unique billing alignment. The village has also suspended late fees for water customers through the end of the year.”
