Council to consider changing timing of utility delinquent fees
By Terry Murry on Monday, November 8th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
MILTON-FREEWATER – The Milton-Freewater City Council will meet tonight (Monday) at 7 in the Albee Room of the city library, Eight SW Eighth Avenue, to consider a resolution to amend the user fee schedule associated with reconnecting and disconnecting utility accounts. City Manager Linda Hall explained the change in the $25 fee is simple as it just moves the timing of when it would be applied.
“So, it will be applied at the time the utility account is disconnected for delinquency, and not at the time it is reconnected,” she said.
According to Hall, the rationale behind this is that the city incurs the expense of tracking the delinquency and physically disconnecting the meter at the time the meter is disconnected much more than the time it is reconnected.
“Also, if the account is never reconnected, we have a chance of recouping that $25 fee from our collections process if it is assessed at the time the account is disconnected instead of waiting to see if it was be reconnected,” she said.
The council will also consider approving an additional service request with FFA Architecture and Interiors of Portland for design, engineering, evaluation, and development of construction plans and specifications for the 911 emergency and police radio communications systems for the new police and dispatch facility.
“This is a specialty field over and above what the building designer and architect team do, so we are contracting out this separately,” Hall said. “As you can imagine, it is a very important component of the project. We had expected this additional service contract to be needed.”
