The City of Statesboro says the utility billing service schedule will change beginning next month.
From the City:
Utility customers will soon see a change in their utility bills starting in April. Currently, when a customer receives their utility bill, the total amount due is for services rendered almost two months ago. The current service schedule is a holdover from a time when meter readers had to physically go out to each customer’s meter, take a reading, then submit those readings to the finance department to be keyed for billing. With the advent of digital meter monitoring, the city can now receive readings in real-time from a computer which makes billing turnaround a lot quicker.
To get to a point where customers’ bills will reflect the past 30 days of service, the city will have to essentially “catch up” on their billing to bring it into compliance with the new schedule. The new schedule change will see customers being charged for 35 days of service instead of the usual 30 days of service in their monthly bills over the next 10 months. Because the bill will include an additional five days of service, customers’ bills will be slightly higher than usual. **It’s important to note that this is not a rate increase but a change in the number of service days billed.**
Residential customers with average water and sewer usage could see an increase of roughly $6 to their monthly bill during the transitional period. In comparison, a residential customer that utilized average amounts of water, sewer, and natural gas could see an increase of around $23 a month.
For questions regarding the service date change, customers can contact the City of Statesboro Utility Billing Department at 912-764-5468.
