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Council continues tightening leaks in water department
By ALEX WUKMAN
At their November 13 meeting, Cleveland City Council accepted a proposal from the city’s finance director Kellan Shaw to amend the city’s water and sewer ordinance.
Shaw’s proposal outlined changes that she feels are necessary to improve the collection of delinquent and past due water and sewer accounts.
Shaw’s proposal came after a month with a particularly high volume of past due accounts. October alone had 555 accounts that were overdue; of those, only 76 were disconnected.
Some of the accounts had been overdue for months, which is something that Shaw’s proposal seeks to remedy. She asked city council to “change the [water and sewer] ordinance to read that once service is disconnected, the customer must pay the past due amount plus the current amount.”
Currently the ordinance only requires the past due amount to be paid to restore service. Shaw told council that she believes that changing the ordinance to require payment of both past due and the current amount owed would break what she terms “the past due cycle.”
“The majority of the cutoff notices are from the same customers each month,” said Shaw. Another change that was proposed was to update the ordinance to reflect the current fee for having service restored which is $25.
Additionally, Shaw proposed changing the wording of the ordinance that relates to notifying customers that they are past due. Currently the ordinance requires all past due to notices to be mailed first class.
Shaw proposed that the ordinance read “delivered by first class or receiving a door hanger notice at their residence.”
“The door hangers are more effective,” said Shaw. The option of mailing notices was left in for months when it is impossible to hand deliver the notices. The last two changes Shaw proposed are in relation to customer’s paying their bills with bad checks.
She proposed that the ordinance be amended to read that “all customers issuing by payment by check that are returned for non-payment [or insufficient funds] will be required to make future payments by cash or money order for a pre-determined period of time.”
The proposal also stated that if the hot check was received to prevent the disconnection of service or to establish new service, that customer’s service will be immediately disconnected. Shaw also requested that council establish a written policy that would let customers request an extension instead of having service disconnected.
“The city currently offers this on a case-by-case basis,” said Shaw. She went on to state that she “would like to set-up guidelines that would require them to sign an agreement instead of requesting by phone and allow only one extension per quarter.”
Shaw’s proposal comes at a time when the city is trying to reform the water and sewer department. City council recently contracted an outside firm to audit the water and sewer department for allegedly misplacing over 100,000 gallons of water; however, the problem may not in the pipes, but in the bookkeeping.
Also, earlier this year city council passed ordinances that not only raised the price for water and sewer service but mandated that all homes within the city limits be connected.
Shaw’s proposal outlined changes that she feels are necessary to improve the collection of delinquent and past due water and sewer accounts.
Shaw’s proposal came after a month with a particularly high volume of past due accounts. October alone had 555 accounts that were overdue; of those, only 76 were disconnected.
Some of the accounts had been overdue for months, which is something that Shaw’s proposal seeks to remedy. She asked city council to “change the [water and sewer] ordinance to read that once service is disconnected, the customer must pay the past due amount plus the current amount.”
Currently the ordinance only requires the past due amount to be paid to restore service. Shaw told council that she believes that changing the ordinance to require payment of both past due and the current amount owed would break what she terms “the past due cycle.”
“The majority of the cutoff notices are from the same customers each month,” said Shaw. Another change that was proposed was to update the ordinance to reflect the current fee for having service restored which is $25.
Additionally, Shaw proposed changing the wording of the ordinance that relates to notifying customers that they are past due. Currently the ordinance requires all past due to notices to be mailed first class.
Shaw proposed that the ordinance read “delivered by first class or receiving a door hanger notice at their residence.”
“The door hangers are more effective,” said Shaw. The option of mailing notices was left in for months when it is impossible to hand deliver the notices. The last two changes Shaw proposed are in relation to customer’s paying their bills with bad checks.
She proposed that the ordinance be amended to read that “all customers issuing by payment by check that are returned for non-payment [or insufficient funds] will be required to make future payments by cash or money order for a pre-determined period of time.”
The proposal also stated that if the hot check was received to prevent the disconnection of service or to establish new service, that customer’s service will be immediately disconnected. Shaw also requested that council establish a written policy that would let customers request an extension instead of having service disconnected.
“The city currently offers this on a case-by-case basis,” said Shaw. She went on to state that she “would like to set-up guidelines that would require them to sign an agreement instead of requesting by phone and allow only one extension per quarter.”
Shaw’s proposal comes at a time when the city is trying to reform the water and sewer department. City council recently contracted an outside firm to audit the water and sewer department for allegedly misplacing over 100,000 gallons of water; however, the problem may not in the pipes, but in the bookkeeping.
Also, earlier this year city council passed ordinances that not only raised the price for water and sewer service but mandated that all homes within the city limits be connected.
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