EXPLANATION OF SEWER USAGE BILLING

The City is divided into three billing districts. Each district is billed four times per year at the same time as the Water Department bills for drinking water usage. The City's Water Department provides billing services to the Water Pollution Control Division. These services include reading meters, calculate bills based on the rates and policies established by the Sewer Authority, maintaining billing records and mailing the bills printed on the Drinking Water bills. Bills are calculated based on the usage rate set by the Sewer Authority, $0.01692 per cubic foot ( approximately 23 cents for 100 gallons ) times the amount used plus a service fee based on the size of the water meter. The usage rate or cost to discharge a gallon of water is the same for all users, both residential and commercial. The difference between the types of accounts is in how the amount of water discharged is determined.

RESIDENTIAL  ACCOUNTS

Sewer Usage Rate = .01692 dollars per cubic ft

* (one cubic foot of water = 7.48 gallons)

Service fee (based on size of water meter)

COMMERICIAL ACCOUNTS

Retail stores, industrial users, apartment and condominiums with more than three dwelling units are classified as commercial users. Their actual water consumption and sewer use may vary greatly during different times of this year. This would be the case with seasonal business, industry production, or vacancies in apartments. Therefore, commercial accounts are billed sewer usage based on the actual amount of water used during the quarter as read off the water meter plus a standard service fee. The amount of the service fee depends on meter size (or pipe size) of the water service entering the building.

 Example:

If a commercial building serviced by a 3/4 inch water meter used 3,510 cubic feet of water during the three month billing period, the bill for that quarter would be:

Residential homes, one to three family houses are billed at the same rate charge as commercial accounts (0.01692 dollars per cubic foot plus service fee) except residential usage is based on the amount of water used during the winter quarter. The reason for this is that any water used during the winter is discharged into the sanitary sewer. During the summer months water is used to water lawns, wash cars, and fill pools and never enters the sewer system. By basing the billing usage on the winter quarter only, homeowners are not billed unnecessarily for water that did not enter the sewer system.

 Example:

A residential home served by a 5/8 inch water meter uses 1,500 cubic feet of water during the winter quarter (January 07, February 07, March 07 for District 2). Their sewer usage bill for each of the four quarters from July 07 to June 08 will be:

If a residence is served by a private well, it is not metered by the Water Department. The sewer bill for these homes is based on an average consumption of 2,100 cubic feet per quarter plus the $12.93 service fee, this comes to $48.46 per quarter at the current rate.

Additionally, there is a minimum quarterly billing consumption of 1,200 cubic feet. Including the $12.93 service fee, the minimum sewer bill is $33.23 per quarter.