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By Don Patterson
staff reporter
Anyone with overdue water bills will no longer be forced to go dry, however, they will still have to pay their debt to the Town.
Town council approved first reading of a bylaw last week that will see overdue water bill charges added to a person’s property tax bill. With the change in place, the Town will no longer turn off water service to homes with unpaid utility bills.
Property owners with overdue accounts will receive a notice in the mail notifying them of the status of their account and will have 10 business days to pay their bill before it will be transferred to their taxes.
Allen Jenkins, outgoing municipal financial services manager, said the change will simplify the process of dealing with overdue accounts. As well, he said it will address cases where water service can’t be shut off, such as when a valve is broken or in the winter when they are often frozen.
“We think it’s a move in the right direction. We can certainly maintain the public awareness of the water situation through other means, other than simply turning the water off,” said Jenkins.
In October, 162 accounts were past due and residents were notified. Of these, he said 134 bills were paid, water service was shut off in 14 cases and another 14 were transferred to property taxes because the Town was unable to turn off the water for a variety of reasons.
“This is part of our argument. Even though we have the water shut off policy, we end up transferring sometimes as many as half of them to taxes anyway,” said Jenkins.
He said it will also make the process less confrontational because there have been previous cases where residents became belligerent and Town staff had to be accompanied by the RCMP when turning off water services.
As well, Jenkins said the existing shut off policy has posed a problem with renters who find their water turned off without receiving a notice from the Town. He said the Town sends overdue water bills to property owners, not renters and there have been instances where landlords have not informed tenants their water bill is overdue.
“It puts more responsibility on the owner of the property,” he said.
There will be no changes to the existing penalty rates.
“Even though we’re not physically turning the water off, just the action of transferring it to taxes will initiate a $50 transfer fee,” he said.
At present, the Town sends out water bills every two months and residents have 30 days to pay, after which a penalty will be charged. When an account is 90 days overdue, Town staff will attach a notice to the resident’s door and a $20 fee will be charged for this service. The Town also charges $50 when it has to turn off water service.
He said the Town will continue to charge the $20 fee under the new system. He admitted the change could create the potential for a person’s overdue bill to climb over time as a penalty is issued under property taxes each month.
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