By Pauline Masson –
In November 2023, the City of Pacific shut off the water at the home of 75 residents for late payment. In December there were 15 shut offs – due to the holidays the list did not get completed. Last month, 69 residents had their water shut off.
Each resident had to pay $25 to have their water turned back on, allowing the City to gain $1,815. This is in addition to $36,071 the city collected in late fees between July 2023 and this month from residents who did not pay their water bill on time, according to City Clerk Kim Barfield.
Robert Brueggemann, public works director said in most cases the water is turned back on the same day it is shut off.
“If they come up and pay the bill by 5:00 p.m. the water is turned back on the same day,” Brueggemann said. “That is usually what happens. We try not to do shut offs on Friday when there would be no one at city hall on Saturday or Sunday to accept payments.”
Water bill late fees and shut offs for late payment were discussed at the Jan. 29 administrative committee meeting. The result of that discussion was that residents could expect no relief from the punitive fees for paying their water bills late.
At that meeting it was revealed that month after month, the same residents have their water shut off when the amount of late payments reaches $45. One help committee members offered was to improve notification – on the face of the bill – when the water would be shut off.
Due to privacy concerns, the city is probably prohibited from naming the individuals who are caught in this dilemma and face the water shut off and extra cost to use city water every month, but clearly the public has a right to know why this is happening.
A question that comes to mind is how many of the individuals who are being charged $30 or more in late fees and reconnection fees every month are on fixed income, waiting for their Social Security check to arrive.
Some residents who pay their monthly bills through an online service offered by their bank.
One reason some residents’ payment don’t reach city hall on time to avoid water shut off is because residents pay their bills through their banks, rather than writing a check and delivering it to the city through the mail or at one of two drop boxes located in the city.
Speaking at the February 6 board of alderman (BOA) City Administrator Harold Selby said he had reached out to Bank Star, which handles city accounts and had learned that there might be a way to get the payments to the city on time to avoid having the water shut off, and even avoid some late fees.
Selby met with Josh Sachs, of Bank Star and Sachs explained the practices that banks use when customers use online bill pay services.
The banks often use a third party service to write and mail the checks. The third party company may be located in another state. And even more inconvenient for the bill payer, the company may hold the check writing until they receive a batch of requests.
“The checks could be coming (to Pacific Cit Hall) from another state, and could be mailed days after the resident paid through their bank,” Selby said. “They could be paying their bill on time but it is not getting here on time through no fault of theirs.”
Selby said he had learned from Sachs that the city could enter into a contract with each of the banks that residents use to accept Electronic Funds Transfers (ETF) – rather than have the checks mailed.
By utilizing ETF, if residents pay their water bill through their bank on the 5th of the month it would get to city hall by the next day at the latest.
The city would probably have to work with each bank individually, Selby noted, but the one-time agreement with individual banks would eliminate the need for mailing out late notices and using pubic works crews to turn water off and on.
The city now allows residents to pay online, through the city’s web page, but many residents don’t use the service because the bank charges a two percent fee to use the service.
“Residents tall me they don’t pay through the city’s online service because they don’t want to pay that extra fee for their water,” Selby said.
Alderman Rick Presley asked whether the BOA might agree for the city to absorb the cost of the extra online fee so residents would use the online service.
Selby said it was uncertain how much the online service fee would cost the city, but it would be offset by reducing other costs the city faces in sending out late payment notifications and the shut off and turn on process.
Selby said he would research all the costs the city experiences with water bills and would bring the figures to the February 20 BOA meeting.
