MOUNT VERNON — The start of a new monthly billing system in Mount Vernon caught quite a few residents off guard.
Like all city customers, Jones was on a reading cycle of two estimated bills, followed by a third bill that settled up for actual water usage over the three months. He said he would have appreciated it if the city had started the new billing on the third monthly bill, when he expects it to be higher.
The city has gone to radio-read meters for water customers, meaning that everyone now gets a bill for their actual water use every month. Utilities Superintendent Mathias Orndorf said his office has gotten calls from a lot of residents who saw their bill go up when they didn’t expect it to, and wanted to know why.
The new radio read meters take readings at the meter and relay them to a program at the utilities department. Previously, each meter had to be read in the field, either from a remote read in a city vehicle driving by the meter or at the meter in person. The city has approximately 6,600 water accounts active at any one time, which was more than city employees could read in a month, Orndorf said. Therefore, meters were read on schedules of once every three months.
There are now 5,645 radio read meters operating, Orndorf said, which means city employees only have to go out and read less than 800 meters. Even so, those readings took more than a week, according to Orndorf.
The old way of billing was to send out estimates — usually the minimum amount of $43.36 per month — for two months, then doing a read for three months in the third month. The bills from the two estimated readings were credited, and the remainder, representing actual usage, is billed to the customer.
The minimum bill is based on the use of 2,992 gallons of water or less, Orndorf said.
Anyone with questions about their water bill should call the water office at 740-393-9504.
