City questions sewer billing, citizen questions city

While some residents might be worried about running up their sewer bill watering their lawns this summer, others are just trying to deal with the fact that all the irrigation in the world couldn’t make money grow on trees.

                As the High Springs City Commission convened for its regular meeting June 24, everyone was ready and waiting to here a scheduled presentation on the results of a recent utility rate study. The study was done to see if and how wastewater billing is affected in the summer months when people use increased amounts of water that doesn’t actually feed back through the system, like for watering their lawns.

                But before they could get to that, commissioners had to answer Lauren Curry.

                She came before them to discuss what she found to be questionable, perhaps unfair practices in late fee billing and utility shut-off.

                Curry explained she was one of 55 residents who had their water shut off this month. Part of the problem was what a surprise it was to her when it was turned off on June 22, rather than June 25, which according to her, is traditionally, reliably, the day of the month it will get shut off if you haven’t paid.

                She also presented some research that suggested High Springs may have the highest late fee of any city in the state of Florida.

                City commissioners and the city manager called on the city’s licensing and billing director, Rita Troiano, who was in the audience, to help clarify some of Curry’s concerns.

                Troiano said the city can’t always guarantee one set date that shut offs will occur, because there are just two staff members who are responsible for doing them all. She also pointed out that the city tries to avoid ever shutting off utilites on a Friday, because that would leave residents waiting until Monday to have their water (or other utility) turned back on.

                Another of Curry’s concerns was what happens if a bill is due over the weekend—does it then become due the Friday before, or will it not be due until the following Monday?

                Troiano said it will always be due the next business after the weekend due date.

                As far as the issue of overly high late fee rates, the commission indicated that it’s a valid concern shared by many, including some of the commissioners themselves, and it will be looked into.

                Toward the end of the June 24 meeting, which nearly ran to midnight, the commission finally heard from city engineer Mike Clark on the findings of the recent utility rate study.

                The study stemmed from citizen concerns that they were being overbilled for wastewater that was not actually being processed by the sewer system.

                Clark explained that the data he presented came from a very small sample of just a year, which isn’t as accurate as the findings of a study done over more time would be. But according to these figures, the city saw no notable spike in summer wastewater billing vs. usage.

                The city wanted to check that billing was fair, as residents expressed worries that they might be paying for a service they aren’t actually using. Clark addressed the common notion that bills spike in summer because of increased irrigation, but he said “we cannot compare this [High Springs] to a much larger community.”

                In other words, because of the size of High Springs, both in population and industry, spikes in usage can almost always be correlated to some sort of event within the community that would explain them.

                All this could change though, he pointed out, as the rest of the city is gradually hooked up to the system.