Fresno water bills will be late but lower

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Clerks in Fresno?s utility billing department have a lot of explaining to do to customers, who don?t understand their bills, or haven?t received them.

FRESNO, Calif (KFSN) -- Clerks in Fresno's utility billing department have a lot of explaining to do to customers, who don't understand their bills, or haven't received them.

Robert S. Thomas had been watching his mailbox then came downtown. "I never been late on my bill, I was wondering why it didn't come so that's why I just came down here to pay it."

The reason Robert's bill didn't come on time is because the city has been scrambling to adjust rates and billing cycles as the result of the city council's decision to roll back the rate hikes they first approved last year.

Utility Division Manager Tommy Esqueda explains, "So what we've had happen is on June 30th there was one rate the city council had previously approved for water it was about 1.11 per hundred cubic feet, July 1st we had a new rate increase of 1.39 per hundred cubic feet, and then on August 1st decided to rescind the rate so went back to 61 cents per hundred cubic feet."

The bottom line is the August-September bill will be for 61 cents per hundred cubic feet, 50% lower and rates will stay that way until the city figures out another way to implement the rate hikes it says it needs to improve the water infrastructure and build a new treatment plant. Before that happens, Fresno Communications Director Mark Standriff says the city plans to fully inform and involve the public.

Standriff said, "Moving forward we want to make sure we have a plan that the average citizen is not only on board with but understands every single part of the process."

A lack of citizen input was behind the petition drive launched by civic activist Doug Vagim to let the voters decide rate hikes. Rather than put it to the voters the council opted to accept Vagim's option of repealing the hikes, they had planned to implement over four years, and try again, later. Those hikes would have eventually doubled the average water bill from $24 to $48 per month. The city hopes to have a new rate plan in place by next February. It will likely offer lower rate hikes over a longer period of time.