10-12-11 Council Agenda - Laserfiche WebLink

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49,000 of 202,000 gallons. So it appears that two of the accounts will end up below 50,000 and two will end up over 50,000. This method of determining how much each resident owes is very tedious for the Utility Billing Clerk. It involves a lot of extra work and math and billing procedures. Staff believes that there will be meters in the City that have under - registering remotes and the current method of billing for the discrepancy could become very difficult to manage if the number of under - registering remotes is more than just a few. Therefore, staff revisited the policy based on the information gained in dealing with the four accounts from last year as well as other accounts from the past. Staff believes that a minimum number of gallons of under - registered water that would trigger the policy should be set. In looking at the four accounts from last year and looking back through past meter discrepancies it was determined that 50,000 gallons was a fair breakpoint. That means that any account whose meter and remote differed by less than 50,000 gallons would be billed for the entire amount of the difference between the meter and remote and any account whose meter differed by more than 50,000 gallons would be billed for 50,000 gallons of under - registered water and would also be reviewed for a year to determine if additional water and sewer charges above the 50,000 gallons were necessary. Each scenario will be explained in further detail below. Staff believes that the 50,000 - gallon breakpoint method is fair to all accounts that have discrepancies. Accounts with less than a 50,000 - gallon difference end up paying for all of the water that passed through their respective meters but were not billed for it due to the remote unregistering. (This may mean we are collecting more than one year's worth of unregistered water.) For accounts with a difference of greater than 50,000 gallons, it is fair to charge them for 50,000 gallons just as the account with a difference of 50,000 gallons was charged the full amount and also monitor the account to see if further money should he collected based on usage. When the difference is that large, it likely means the remote was faulty for a longer period of time but did not show a big enough difference in readings to alert staff. Based upon the Council's past discussion, a resident should not be forced to pay the entire under - registered water usage because a remote was not functioning properly for a longer period of time. (Statutorily, we can only go back six years to correct this problem.) Fortunately, the new fixed -base system will eliminate this issue altogether. It should also be noted that under - registering remotes are almost entirely a residential meter issue. There are only a handful of commercial meters in the City that have remotes and they are only used for small, 3/4" meters used in town office complexes and other small businesses. Large meters cannot be read with a remote so they are read each quarter at the actual meter. 0- 50,000 Gallon Discrepancy If a meter and remote have a difference of between 0 and 50,000 gallons, the account will be billed for the entire difference for water. A sewer adjustment will also be made for one year based on the difference between the new and old 1" quarter readings 2