Shut-off date in new water billing cycle nears

During March, April and May the city of Nevada changed its water billing cycle to a system of reading all the meters in a 10-day period, and then sending out all the water bills during the next week.

This month, the new billing cycle means that the bills customers received in April are past due, and the cut-off date for those bills arrives Tuesday, June 5.

As of Thursday morning JD Kehrman, city manager, said there were 285 customers who were on the shut-off list for next week.

So Kehrman said that he had the city staff call everyone on that list as a final reminder of the change in the billing cycle and their impending shut-off.

"Most of those called were aware of it. There were one or two who were not," Kehrman said Thursday afternoon.

"We extended the period to pay and I hope people take advantage of it. I hope a lot of people come in Friday and Monday to pay," he said.

"Anyone not paid by 5 p.m., Monday, June 4, will be shut off," Kehrman said.

He said that all customers had more than 40 days to pay this bill and some had about 50 days to pay.

Under the new billing schedule, customers have 15 days from the date a bill becomes delinquent to pay, before the water is shut off.

"Before, it was nine days," he said.

"After this cycle we won't be calling water customers before shut-off," he said.

Kehrman said that until now, the on-time payers were subsidizing the late payers.

This will eliminate the last inefficiency in the system.

He said that the city needs to get people accustomed to paying on time, which will reduce the city's expense for disconnecting and reconnecting them.

And for those customers who need help to pay their water bills he said that he thinks there must be some agency, church, organization or other resource in the community that can provide help.

"Now we can look at rates," he said.

The city spends between $5 million and $6 million annually to operate the water and sewer systems and the sewer treatment plant has $13 million in debt.

The city has about 4,200 accounts, he said.

"The city's job is to provide water and sewer services reliably and at the lowest cost possible. These changes will help us keep costs down," he said.