By Tabitha Evans Moore, EDITOR & PUBLISHER
LYNCHBURG — The Metro Utilities Department (MUD) say they will launch an investigation into delayed water and sewer bills based on at least one customer complaint.
On Tuesday, local resident Ken Fly appeared before the MUD Board during their regular October meeting to complain of a $12 late fee he received on his most recent water and sewer bill.
Fly told the Board that he received late bill notification sometime in the previous two weeks, then “came straight to the MUD offices to make the payment.” When he arrived, he requested that the $12 late fee be removed from his bill, and MUD officials refused.
“You can probably go back the whole 25-30 years I’ve been around here, I’ve paid maybe two or three late charges,” he told the Board.
Fly says the MUD office staff suggested that the issue might be with the local post office, so he paid them a visit, and asked if anyone else was having a problem receiving their bill.
“She said, ‘Yeah, we do. I have a problem with folks getting their water department bill.’ We should not have a situation where people are charged late fees and they didn’t receive a bill.”
Fly later stated that the September bill was the third time in 2024 that he’s failed to receive his paper bill.
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MUD uses third-party, offsite billing
Several years ago, MUD decided to switch from in-house billing to a third-party company called Continental Utility Billing Solutions (CUSI) located in Jonesboro, Arkansas. According to Office manager Katie Goodwin, she submits the information for billing the same day that local meters are read – on the last business day of each month.
“We send on the last business day, unless that day falls on a weekend. If that happens, we send it up the Friday before. We also pull reports that show ones that are larger than normal and there are a few error reports that we look at to ensure everything is correct,” Goodwin explained to the Board.
“From the time that we approve, it’s supposed to be a 24-hour turnaround,” Goodwin explained to the Board.
Emailed bills get delivered into local inboxes that following Monday and paper statements get mailed out the first week of the month. All MUD bills are mailed bulk and not first class. Bulk mail is less expensive but has a longer delivery time. According to the USPS, typically bulk mail can take 2-9 days to arrive. First class mail arrives in 1-3 days.
On average, Goodwin reports that MUD adds a late fee to about 200 customers, which represents around 10 percent of their total customer base. Goodwin also stated that those late fees tend to get applied to the same accounts each month.
According to MUD Board Chair Barry Posluszny, late fees generate between $25,000 and $30,000 of annual revenue.
That’s about an average amount according to the folks at NerdWallet. In a May 2024 report, they estimated that about 37 percent of Americans have been charged a late fee on a bill in the last 12 months. Credit card late fees were the most common, with 21% of survey respondents incurring at least one. Others had been charged late fees on utility bills, 10%, and rent, 8%. NerdWallet polled 2,061 U.S. adults in early April.
Goodwin stated that office staff call around 150 customers the week before the due date asking them to pay their water bills. She admits that some complain that they never received a bill or that they received a bill after the late fees have been added.
Board member Charles Johnston stated during the discussion that he’d executed an independent study using the Center Grove Utility Department – whose customer base is similar to MUD in size – as a model and discovered that the price for mailing bills in house versus third-party is about the same.
“I was wanting to bring it back because I thought it cost us a lot,” Johnston stated. “When you break it down per piece, the cost is about the same in-house versus third party. I was shocked.”
MUD will continue to investigate
Goodwin stated that she became aware that September bills arrived later than normal for some customers and moved back the late fee date as a courtesy.
“We didn’t put them on the day after the due date,” she told the Board. “We waited until the 19th to add them, so it was still 10 days from the date that we knew people were getting their bills until the penalties were put on.”
“It doesn’t matter how long you extended or didn’t put them on if like me, they didn’t receive a bill,” Fly stated.
Fly also objected to the fact that his water bills arrive without a postmark. MUD Chair Barry Posluszny explained that bulk mail isn’t postmarked.
“When it’s bulk mail, they pay for all of those envelopes and then zip them through. There’s nothing to mark,” he explained to Fly. “But I’ll be the first one to admit that we’ve had problems over the past year with our billing.”
Posluszny stated that he often received his bill one or two days before the due date and signed up for text alerts himself to avoid late fees.
“You guys know that water is high enough in this county without adding on fees,” Fly stated. “I don’t know what the solution is here, but I think we’ve got a problem and I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s got this problem.”
MUD does offer an email bill option, text alerts, and autopay as an option to help local customers not be late on their bill. They also use static rather than revolving due date. MUD bills are always due on the 15th of each month.
In the end, Goodwin stated that she wasn’t opposed to giving five extra days of grace period, if that helped locals not be late on their bills.
This is definitely something that we’re going to look into,” Posluszny stated. “It’s something that’s been on my plate for a while. I leave it up to the office staff as to whether they want to back up the due date by five days or not.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: Have you had a problem receiving your MUD bill on time? If so, send an email to [email protected] and let us know.•
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