By Thia James

Council Round-up: Council approves monthly water billing

Apr 30, 2013 | 6:08 AM

After a lengthy debate, the city council passed Mayor Greg Dionne’s motion to implement monthly water billing in the new year.

The change will come at a cost of no less than $84,000, according to director of finance Joe Day. That cost would be to cover the additional stationary and postage cost.

But during Monday evening’s council meeting, Mayor Greg Dionne said the city could help the department figure out cheaper ways to bill residents.

“What in the three-month period does our total water bills add up to, that we’re going to start collecting monthly, if you divide it by three? Because we’re talking cash flow, is what I’m talking about,” he said.

Day said the city would collect the same amount of money over a three-month billing cycle that it would if billing were broken up on a monthly basis.

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Therefore, the city would get an influx of money each month, as opposed to the end of the three-month billing cycle, from all users.

And monthly billing would help the city deal with delinquent water users. If, after non-payment for a month, Dionne said, the city would be “on” the user for not paying after the fifth or the 10th day of the following month.

“The way it is today, you get three months of free water, the fourth month we get the bill, we can’t collect, we disconnect. So that brings our AR [accounts receivables] up. So, there’s lots of advantages, in my opinion to moving the water bills to once a month.”

The motion passed with only one councillor against. Coun. Rick Orr voiced his opposition to the change – although he said he liked the intent — on the grounds that he needed to know the costs before voting in favour of it.

He said every month, the city has a certain number of water bills going out to about a third of residents. “So we have the employees and the people online to look after that on a monthly basis. But if we’re going to triple their work level, now all our costs are gone up. So I still can’t support this, until I know what my costs are.”

But earlier in the discussion, Coun. Martin Ring made the case for changing over to a monthly billing cycle not only because of cash flow, but because it would “push the envelope” technologically.

”But for us to start pushing the envelope with our IT department so that we can get ourselves into a stronger electronic-based type of environment … I think we have to push the envelope here a little bit.”

City approves grass clipping pick-up changes

Prince Albert residents will now have to put their yard waste in clear plastic bags and put them out at the curb, after council voted in favour of changes to the city’s grass clipping pick-up.

The city will also review the program as a ‘fee for service’ during the 2014 budget committee deliberations.

And that’s something that Coun. Don Cody cautioned the council against.

“Once again, we continue to nickel and dime the public. You know, we just can’t get enough money in our pockets, it seems to be these days,” he said. “We raised the taxes, we raised the utilities, we’ve got re-assessment, we’ve got all of these things going on, and no sir, that isn’t enough folks, we’re going to get into your pocket one more time.”

He said a resident called him and said that he doesn’t use the service, and questioned why he’s paying for it.

“Well you know what, I don’t use the school either, and I pay for it. And I don’t use the Alfred Jenkins Centre [Field House] and I pay for it, and on and on it goes. So, I think collectively we have to remember that we are a collective group of people that live in a city and … we have to pay from time to time for each other’s things that that are not used by us.”

Prior to the passage of the recommendations, Coun. Lee Atkinson asked that the usage of the pick-up service be tracked. And Coun. Ted Zurakowski also requested that the residents be made aware of the costs of the program.

And the costs of the program don’t come directly from taxes, but is paid by residents through the sanitation charge on the utility bill, city manager Robert Cotterill pointed out.

Atkinson pointed to the cost of yard waste collection reaching approximately $100,000 annually for a service that the city offers for a limited number of months during the year.

“But those are the kinds of costs we’re actually looking at. So this isn’t a minor item. [It’s] fairly substantial.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames