In north Grover Beach, people receive their water bills every two months, but charges on the latest bill came as a surprise to many.
“That's when I started speaking to other residents, trying to find out what their billing period is and just trying to figure out how they were able to bill us and start looking at other municipal agencies and how they did the billing,” sai Loren Westphal, Grover Beach resident.
In December, the city council approved a water rate increase effective February 1.
“Yes, we had a rate increase of $26, which we were billed once every two months,” said Ben Breshears, Grover Beach resident.
But residents like Westphal had questions about when they should be seeing the new fees on their bills.
Grover Beach City Manager Matthew Bronson says north Grover Beach customers, who are billed at different times than those in the southern part of the city, were billed according to the practice they’ve implemented for years.
“The way it has worked for many years is that your bill reflected the usage in the prior two months,” Bronson said.
Bronson explains customers are billed based on past water usage, but the rates applied are determined by the current rate structure. So even though they're paying for water already used, they're charged according to the new rate structure in effect at the time of billing, which gave some residents the impression they were being “overcharged.”
“It was not early implementation, it was the implementation based on how we've done this for many, many years,” Bronson said.
The charges on the February bills were a topic of discussion during this week's city council meeting. Westphal was in attendance and brought her concerns before council members.
After hearing peoples’ concerns and recognizing that many were not aware of how the billing works, staff recommended and approved a change that ensures water customers are billed under the new rates only for the water they use after the new rates are implemented, eliminating any confusion or perception of paying in advance for a future rate structure.
“Once we have the effective date — in this case, February 1 — then we will charge on the usage after February 1," Bronson said. "And in essence, the new billing wouldn't happen until after the rate structure window effect. That's a change in our practice.”
Bronson says the city will provide a credit adjustment for north Grover Beach customers with the current February billing so that this billing will ultimately be based on the prior rate structure.
“People are paying, trying to pay their bills. I'm just glad I dug and I'm glad Grover Beach listened," Westphal said.
