At Monday’s Quinte West budget meeting councillors expressed some concerns regarding water bills.
Councillor. Sally Freeman asked about securing monthly billing for water instead of the current bi-monthly payments.
“Some of these new homes, they can get a $700 or $800 bill come in instead of $400 and $400 so it’s pretty shocking to see.”
Deputy Treasurer Caleb DenOuden said that transitioning to monthly billing is cost-prohibitive right now due to the fact that they pay to have the meters read six times per year and that would mean paying double to have it read 12 times per year. However, DenOuden also said that they are switching to radio meter reading which would be less costly and that monthly billing is in the view of the finance department.
Councillor Leslie Roseblade suggested paying capital charges one month and then paying the water bill the next month.
“One other suggestion may be if you’re looking at doing it every other month, that one month we pay the capital charges and the next month we pay the water usage. So you’ll still only have to read it every other month but the capital charges are what really adds to the bill, I’ll tell you that, that’s most of my bill.”
Councillor David O’Neil asked about mirroring realty taxes in giving residents an option of paying a monthly fee.
“If we do something like the realty taxes and give the residents the option of paying a monthly instalment, and that could be adjusted. That way we don’t have to do any more of the billing but they can be at an equal payment. Just the people that want to could opt into it.”
DenOuden took down the comments from the councillors for further consideration.
