Officials to address complaints of high water bills

Glitches have occurred in a water-billing system
conversion.

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

LAKE MILTON — Complaints about recent sharp increases in water bills for customers in Jackson and Milton townships and Craig Beach will be addressed in a special meeting of the Milton Township trustees at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The meeting, to be held in the township hall or in the adjacent fire station, depending on crowd size, will be attended by officials of the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineer’s office, which supplies the water, and Aqua Ohio, an investor-owned water company, which does the billing for the county.

The county provides water and sewer service to about 1,300 customers in the Jackson-Milton area.

Bill Coleman, the county sanitary engineer’s office manager, said his office has received hundreds of telephone inquiries and complaints from customers over the past three months concerning billing issues, which he said stem from Aqua’s switch May 1 to new corporatewide billing software.

“There have been some glitches,” in conversion from the old to new systems, he said. In addition to complaints about high bills, some customers have inquired about late bills or bills they haven’t received, he said.

Coleman urged those who think they’ve been billed for water they didn’t use to call his office, which will send someone to re-read the meter and check for water leaks, he said. Some bills are based on estimates made from a customer’s previous water-use patterns, he said.

Behind the effort

Tim Cline, of Myrtle Avenue, Lake Milton, has been spearheading the effort to promote attendance at the meeting and the resolution of billing concerns.

Cline said his monthly water bills have ranged from $61 to $107 between November and April and rose to $124 for June and $237 for July. His family’s water consumption consistently averages about 5,000 to 6,000 gallons a month, he said. However, his May and June bills were based on estimates of 11,000 gallons consumed each month, and his July bill reported a reading of 21,000 gallons, he said.

“When I get a bill for 21,000 gallons, it doesn’t click. It’s just not right,’’ Cline said, adding that his house has no plumbing leaks.

“I think I’m being billed for three months instead of one,” he said of the $237 bill. “I just can’t afford these kinds of bills. ... I’m not paying the bill until I hear what happens at the meeting,” he said. “There’s no way that there’s 16,000 gallons missing in my house,” Cline added. He said he has talked to about 100 other Lake Milton-area residents with similar complaints.

It was in April that he added 1,500 gallons to the above-ground backyard pool at the house he shares with his wife, Cyndi and daughter, Rachel, 12, and son, Jake, 7, Cline said. Because of recent heavy rains, Cline said he has been letting water out of his pool.

“We work hard to pay our bills, and we’re just regular people, and we can’t be expected to pay these kinds of bills with everything else that’s been going up,” his wife said.

What’s happened to others

In some cases, a previous balance that was already paid may have appeared on a new bill, Coleman said, adding that his office will have to individually examine disputed bills to answer each customer’s questions.

“We certainly will make sure that a customer is satisfied with the explanation,” he said, adding that adjustments will be made in case of errors. “It’s certainly our goal to make sure that people are only paying for the services they are using,” Coleman said.

“It’s supposedly the state-of-the-art utility billing system,” Al Sauline, Aqua Ohio district manager, said of the new system. “When we were converting, we were having some difficulties,” he acknowledged. “Are we having some difficulties? Yes. Are we addressing those difficulties? Yes.” he said. “We hope by the end of September, we will have the majority of this turned around. We’re aggressively pursuing it,” he added.

Although Aqua has a national customer service call center in North Carolina, customers may still appear in person to make inquiries and pay bills at Aqua’s office at 235 State St., Struthers, Sauline said. The company also has quarterly local public forums, the next one in October in Poland, he said.