The first item I want to address is the rates for 2019. If you haven’t read November’s news letter, check out the Rates page on this web site. The rate increase for 2019 is a bit higher than previous years. We are still making up for the Reynvaan recoating project, which came in double the original estimate. We have another big one in the upcoming year, and that is the water main replacement on Highway 12 west of Aberdeen Lake Road. It is not a particularly long stretch of main, but it is between the highway and a steep bank. We anticipate that project to exceed $100,000.

Section 2 (account numbers starting with “02”) will be the first to see the new rates in the February billing. The upcoming January billing is for November and December, so Section 1 folks will see the 2018 rates.

Among other challenges, we are implementing new utility billing software. Any time data is transferred from one program to another, glitches are bound to happen. And data transfers aren’t the only potential for problems. Different software almost always requires modifications to the processes that get information to the software, and retrieve information from the software. That is certainly the case with the new billing program. So please be patient with us.

The Cash Receipting part of the new software has been fully implemented. So far we haven’t encountered any problems. This part of the program really speeds up the process of recording payments and preparing the daily bank deposit. The State Auditor is very particular about how public funds are handled. The new program automates several processes dear to the Auditor that we were previously doing by hand.

Another feature of the new program that we like and think you will too, is the ability to print duplicate water bills. If you lose your bill, or come in to pay without having it in hand, we can print a duplicate in a matter of seconds.

Account numbers will change slightly. A typical account number under the old system might look like this: 02-00004253-00-01. Rather cumbersome. But we REALLY did not want to introduce a whole new account number system. There are still folks who are putting their old account numbers on their payments, after six years!

So we worked up a method that retains the meat of the old account number but conforms to the requirements of the new software. Kind of. The new system requires that there be account numbers for the property and for the individual. You only need to worry about the account number for the individual. The account number for the property looks like this (assuming the same property and individual as above) 02-4253. The account number associated with the person looks like this: 024253.

So, nobody needs to mess with their account number. We can transpose the old number into the new number seamlessly.

There will be a change when the property changes ownership. Account numbers associated with the person generated after 12/01/18 will be numbered sequentially starting with 100. But the account numbers associated with the property will remain unchanged.

Now, if we could only get the few folks who are still writing the pre-2012 account number on their checks to update! They are paying $3.75 per billing period.

We have received many inquiries about paying bills on line, now that we have a web site. That is certainly a goal. But we want to deal with only a limited number of simultaneous steep learning curves.

Another improvement that has been a long time coming is a better night drop. The current night drop has several problems. We have the new hardware and are just waiting for our number to come up with the contractor.