CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Water customers in Chesapeake are saying on social media their bills are hundreds of dollars higher in some cases than what had been typical.
We showed Public Utilities Director David Jurgens some of the tension that’s boiling over.
“We are aware of the challenge, quite frankly,” he said.
People are angry about Chesapeake’s new water rate structure coupled with a new billing system. The changeover, effective October 1, means lower tier users pay less than they used to – $4.25 per unit for the first 10 units. Each unit, identified on bills as a CCF, is equal to 748 gallons.
But once a consumer goes over 10 units that additional usage is billed at $9.06 per unit, a nearly $5 difference. And then there are delays caused by the changeover itself, which means billing periods got longer than the typical 55 to 69 days. More usage, more chance to get bumped up into that higher, costlier tier for everything above 10 units.
About 3% of the city’s 69,000 residential customers ended up with billing cycles of 80 days — nearly three months instead of two.
“We’ve gotten behind. We had a a little over 2,000,” Jurgens said, referring to the number of customers whose billing cycle reached as long as 80 days.
Jurgens says once the kinks in the system get ironed out with time, “the average bill is actually going down a little bit.”
He said his department is making sure the bills are right with a self-audit as the changeover rolled out.
“Our number one priority is that the bills be accurate. We checked every bill with a separate independent check to make sure they were right.”
The city will waive interest and penalties on people who had longer than typical billing periods, but as for the total balance due, “the bill is the bill, and we can’t change the dollar number on the amount due,” Jurgens said.
Jurgens encourages anyone with concerns about their bill to contact his department at 757-382-6352. He says Public utilities had 120,000 customer service contacts last year.