After spending weeks wondering why they had not received their water bills, some Indianola residents were greatly surprised when they arrived at the mailboxes.
Not only were the bills nearly a month past the target mailout date, but the amount due, in some cases, was more than double their average bill and a few were more than triple.
This prompted a handful of residents to reach out on social media to see if they were the only ones experiencing these variations, and apparently they were not.
“What is really going on?” was one of the comments spawned on Facebook.
And after a Choctaw Street resident posted a photo of her water bill that showed a charge of $174.88, someone commented, “What the hell kind of water were you using, Liquid Gold? Indianola water need to stop playing.”
According to Lisa Decker, water department supervisor, and Mayor Steve Rosenthal, the delay and discrepancies can be attributed to several factors including unnoticed leaks by the residents, misreads, turnovers, the holiday season and the amount of rainfall received over the past few weeks.
Decker said the reasons for billing inconsistencies vary from a leaking toilet to multiple months billing in a few cases.
“Reading errors” was also suggested as a contributing factor and she acknowledged that the number of rereads has increased, although she has found that 95 percent of the rereads are accurate and are based on a single-month’s billing.
Rosenthal said he has also been getting calls and visits from residents about their bills but asserts that there is no set pattern, and every case is different.
He admitted that they are experiencing more errors than he would like to see, so he has done some investigations and has taken steps to ensure more accurate readings.
He surmised that some of the increases might be due to more accurate readings now than in prior months.
He alluded that some customers may have been receiving basic billing, whereas now the readings are more on point.
Another question raised in the Facebook post was whether the city had been simply estimating the bill amounts instead of doing actual readings.
Decker said they were not.
In city hall on Monday, a 35-year-old resident said her bill, which normally averages $55 to $60 a month is nearly $130, and her grandmother’s charges, although lower than the $230 she was assessed in December, is just over $169 due in part to an amount that she claims should have been adjusted off when she presented the high bill to Decker last month.
As for the lateness, Rosenthal and Decker placed the culpability for that mainly on the turnover situation.
Rosenthal said they have had three new meter readers in the past 13 months, and there have been some human errors, but he is confident in the current readers’ abilities to get things back on track.
He said the two men have to read 3,400 meters each month that are broken up into routes.
Decker said the city has basically had only one constant meter reader, but the latest addition is now trained and showing more confidence.
She said as of Monday the readers have already finished nearly half of their readings for the month.
“We’ll just have to push forward and try to correct whatever errors have been made as far as making us late,” she said.
Rosenthal also added that even though the meter readers do go out and work in the rain, the conditions, removing mud and having to pump water out of the meters slows them down.
And the five working days they lost across December and January due to holidays did not help.
January’s bills were not mailed out until Jan. 29, which is nearly a month later than the customers expected them. Decker said,
“You know, nobody’s ever told me when they are actually suppose to go out, so I have no knowledge.”
However, she did mention that Rosenthal gave her a goal of the 15th day of each month.
When questioned, Rosenthal said typically the bills should be in hand between the 1st and the 5th of the month.
Looking back at the prior history, Decker said, “Back in June, that’s when Mrs. Charlotte was still here and she was doing all of the bills, they were billed between the 8th and the 12th of the month.”
Although she has yet to maintain her set goal, Decker added that the January mailout was the latest.
In December it was the 21st.
“Hopefully we’ll get them back around to where they are supposed to be,” she said.
Rosenthal said he has met with Decker and the city clerk and discussed hiring another person to help out in the city hall since Decker temporarily has to handle taxes too.
Decker, a deputy city clerk, was promoted to supervisor and given a pay increase to $11 per hour in June after the seated board of aldermen accepted the resignation of Interim City Clerk Charlotte Kilgore.
Kilgore had been overseeing the functions of the water department in addition to her other duties as payroll clerk and city clerk.
Decker said if a citizen suspects that there is an error on their bill, they should call the water department to get them to double check the reading. Rosenthal said, “I apologize for the inconvenience while people are getting more comfortable in their position.”
