By Thia James

What’s behind that unusually high water bill estimate

May 8, 2013 | 6:48 AM

Residents who receive unusually high water bill estimates may not actually owe that full balance for their three months of water use.

That's because the City of Prince Albert's finance department uses a staff estimate – often higher than the usual estimate – after nine straight months of not being able to have staff or the homeowner provide an actual meter reading.

It's a move designed to prompt users to check their meters and submit them to the city.

“What happens is the gentleman goes [and] tries to read your meter every month and he does not successfully. So he leaves a card. That person does not phone in the reading,” Mayor Greg Dionne said during Monday`s executive committee meeting.

He said the water bill clearly states that the city has estimated the bill because the user has not submitted a meter reading.

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“We know it [the bill] is not $800, but we hope that figure is going to spark that household [or] person to then go read the meter, send it in … when he does send it in, he probably only owes $270. It's a tool the department uses to make the person read the meter.”

He said a lot of people do pay the estimate, send in the blue card and then get a credit back.

“It's a tool the department uses very successfully to get you to read your meter,” Dionne said. “And that`s all they ask.”

Dionne's explanation was in response to Coun. Mark Tweidt's inquiry about the high estimates. A resident had called Tweidt about the estimates.

He pointed to other per-use billers that have more accurate estimates, such as SaskPower. “They make an estimate and you don`t have to go in and read it. It`s pretty darn close. The water is 300 per cent out.”

But the issue points to a larger problem – which director of finance Joe Day said will exist until the city can read all meters without going into residents' homes.

“If our staff aren`t able to get into the home, and the homeowner themselves don't give us the meter reading, it doesn't matter whether you get billed monthly or you get billed quarterly, we … at some point are going to have to send a staff estimated bill to that homeowner to get their response,” Day said.

“I can't think of another way to prompt their response to get an actual reading while we still have old technology meters in the homes that have to be read in the basement of the homes. So, that's the only way we`re going to get around it, is investing a lot of money to upgrade our technology.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames