Wednesday, April 03, 2013
 
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City votes to change sewer billing cycle

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[April 03, 2013]  Monday evening there were two motions on the voting agenda of the Lincoln City Council pertaining to the billing of sewer fees for the city.

When the order of business brought the 10 city aldermen to those two items, the first motion was removed from the agenda and the second motion voted upon. That motion was to make a change in the sewer billing cycle from once every four months to once every three months, or quarterly.

Effective May 1, the fee for sewer services in the city will increase $1 per month. With a four-month billing cycle this would have meant residents would be billed $88 at one time for their sewer service. With the change to quarterly billing, the total bill will be only $66.

When the motion passed with a unanimous 10-0 vote, Marty Neitzel who chairs the sewer committee, commented that this was something the city had done in order to help its residents.

"I hope the people of Lincoln realize the reason the city council is going forward with this is to help them with their budgeting process in paying their sewer bill more effectively. We hope it will help them," Neitzel said.

While this completes one phase of changes the city is hoping to initiate in the sewer department, there are still items that will more than likely be discussed in the future.

Several weeks ago, Melody Anderson shared her feelings with the council that those who are delinquent in paying their bills are accruing enormous charges before the city actually gets to the water shut-off portion of the collection process.

She reviewed how a 10 percent charge is added at the first missed due date; then $25 charges are added after the bill reaches its 30th day, 60th day and so on.

In an effort to figure out how to remain effective in the collections and at the same time possibly ease some of the burden to residents who have fallen way behind in their payments, the council discussed shortening the days to cutoff.

At the first workshop meeting in March, the council looked at suggestions from the city clerk and the sewer billing clerk on how to cut out one 30-day increment and shorten the time for the disconnection of water. At the end of that discussion, it appeared that the solution being offered would trim 30 days off the collection process.

Some of the pitfalls to the proposed solution were that it would still be time for another billing cycle before a customer would actually have water service shut off, plus there was the matter of continuing with the monthly $25 fee even after the water was turned off.

Anderson and others discussed how continuing to add to the bill was a hindrance to customers trying to rectify the situation. Some were of the opinion that the fees were warranted, as they were being applied to service already provided by the city; while others wanted to figure out how to stop the fees so as to make it easier for customers to come up with the money.

At last week's committee of the whole meeting, the topic was again addressed. Anderson offered a proposal that would move the shut-off date up and also reduce the number of $25 charges assessed to the account.

Sewer billing clerk Dawn Crowell was on hand to participate in the discussion and expressed a few concerns about the new plan Anderson was putting out there.

Anderson had proposed that the 10 percent late fee at the 21st day remain. The $25 fee at the 30th day would remain. At that time the disconnect notice would be mailed, and the customer would have another 30 days to pay the bill. If they didn't, Illinois American Water would be notified for the water shut-off. That company would send out a final notice giving the customer 10 days to make amends on their account before physically turning off their water.

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Crowell talked about what that would mean in extra work for the clerk's office. She explained that there are many customers who come in right before the shut-off and pay the past-due portion of their bill. She said moving up the date for the letter would more than likely double the number of letters the department had to send out each time.

The discussion then evolved from how long it takes to produce a letter today versus how long it will take with the new sewer software the city is working on getting. Crowell said that now the department has to type the letter, but with the new software, the staff will be able to put a code on the bill, and the letter will generate in a matter of seconds.

The group then talked about how soon the new software will be in place. David Wilmert is working with the city's software provider on the project and said he really couldn't guarantee that the software would be ready by May 1, the target date for implementing the new shut-off policy.

Talking about some of the benefits of the new software, City Clerk Susan Gehlbach said that with the new software, the city will be able to go to a paper bill, mailed in an envelope, which is something the council has wanted for a long time.

City administrator Sue McLaughlin also brought up the idea of doing the sewer billing according to water consumption. She told the council they were losing ridiculous amounts of money with their current billing structure. She said most communities bill according to consumption, and she was quite surprised to learn that Lincoln did not.

Gehlbach and Crowell were asked if the new software could be converted to consumption billing, and they said it could be.

Consumption billing is not a unique suggestion to the city. This has been discussed in the past, but with the limitation of antiquated software, the city was going to have to turn that billing over to Illinois American -- something they did not want to do.

Crowell said that with the new software, Illinois American could provide the clerk's office with consumption information, and it could be input by staff of the clerk's office to generate the sewer bills. However Gehlbach expressed some concern over the time it would take to do that. She said it would be a large effort for a small staff.

The talk then turned to establishing a change in the billing cycle. Currently the city is divided into four sections for sewer billing: northeast, northwest, southeast and southwest. One section of the city is billed each month. Gehlbach said the plan would be to make three sections by combining the southeast and southwest sections of the city.

In the end the aldermen decided that they wanted to drop the changes in the shut-offs for now and move on only with changing the billing cycle from every four months to every three months.

Once the new billing software is in place, the council may revisit what to do with the shut-offs.

[By NILA SMITH]

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