City council approves new billing cycle

Weiser residents will soon receive a notice from the city stating that there will be a change in its utility billing cycle. 

 All residents receive one bill per month from the city for water, garbage, sewer and electricity. Internally, however, the city splits its customer base into two separate billing cycles. 

 The first cycle consists of customers whose due date is the 1st of every month. Bills are due on the 15th in the second cycle. 

 Under city ordinance 1270, recently passed by the Weiser City Council, bills will now be sent out on the first of every month, with the due date for all customers now on the 15th of every month.  

 The city’s two billing cycle system was required back when a city meter reader manually read every household’s meter and the billing process was done on paper, necessitating two cycles to handle the workload. 

 The meter reader position was eliminated when the city transitioned to a digital system, allowing meters to be read and readings to be processed from a single location. 

 “It goes back to the old days when everything was manual,” acting Weiser Mayor Herb Haun told the Signal American Monday. “It would have been overwhelming to have it all in one cycle. Now it’s simple enough that it can all be done in one cycle.” 

 Not much will change for those in the second cycle, but customers in the first cycle will need to adjust their payment schedules based on the single due date. 

 City clerk Natasha McDaniel said the current two-cycle system pulls people away from their departments twice a month for a total of 10 days per month. The new system will cut that in half. 

 “With the elimination of the meter reader position, it puts reading the meters, re-reading the meters, editing routes and then doing shut-offs onto the department,” McDaniel said during an Aug. 12 regular city council meeting. “So, wastewater, water and then the electrical department does shut-offs and all work orders.” 

 McDaniel noted that at the beginning of a cycle, it typically takes two days to read, two days of editing and re-reading if necessary, plus another day to address unforeseen problems or repair work that might arise. 

 One worker per department must go through the process twice a month, pulling them away from other duties. 

 “Essentially that’s 10 days that a person from that department is not working in that department,” McDaniel said. “What we are proposing is that we mail all bills out on the first of the month or the last day of the month. Basically, we send our bills to be processed and then mail them out and they would go out around the first of the month.” 

 The change also affects delinquency timelines. 

 “Instead of having that five-day grace period, we would just say the shut-off day is the 23rd. If the shut-off day falls on a holiday or weekend, it would be the next business day. After everything is converted over, it’s our hope that it has minimized taking a guy out of a department.” 

 She added that it is the city’s intention to notify customers via their bills for two complete cycles and publicize it through local media so that everyone is aware of the change two months in advance before the ordinance goes into effect.  

 Some customers will be making larger than normal payments because of the billing time lag. Making the transition between summer and winter will help to keep the payments lower. 

 “We are trying to do it right now, in the fall, so you are not paying that huge air conditioning or water bill and, in turn, in the winter, you aren’t paying that huge heating bill,” she said. 

 The city council approved ordinance 1270 unanimously. It will go into effect following the specified customer notification period.