| Other Fees and Charges... How to Avoid them
(Excerpt from KKW's Winter 2005 Newsletter)
Wayne Brockway, Treasurer
The District has been making an on-going
effort to review its operational and business practices
to ensure that they are up to date and are fair to
all of its customers. One such area the District recently
completed a review of is its Terms and Conditions,
otherwise known as its Rules and Regulations.
These regulations govern such items as conditions
of service, metering policies, disconnection rules,
etc. We found several items that either needed to
be modified or added to our set of rules. These rule
changes have been submitted to the Public Utilities
Commission for approval and are expected to be approved
with an effective date of January 1, 2005. The changes
are as follows.
Charge for Returned Checks – This new fee is
for any check returned by the bank as unpaid, including
but not limited to the reason of insufficient funds.
The charge will be $5.00 per check or the amount the
bank charges the District, not to exceed $15.00.
Late Payment Charge – This new late payment
charge is applicable to all bills not paid by the
due date, which shall be at least 25 days after the
bill has been mailed. By law, this rate is based on
the Indexed Late Payment Interest Rate as published
on November 1st in the Wall Street Journal, plus 8%,
rounded to the nearest ¼%. The rate cannot
exceed 18% annually. For 2005, the annual rate will
be 12.75%. The equivalent monthly late payment rate
will be 1.01%.
Reconnection Charges - The existing reconnection
charge is being updated to $25.00 for each resumption
of service made during the normal business hours of
7:30 am to 3:30 pm. Outside of normal business hours,
the charge will be $39.00 per hour with a one and
one half hour minimum. If District personnel visit
a customer's premises to disconnect service for non-payment
and in lieu of actual disconnection the customer pays
or makes a payment arrangement for the entire past
due balance, the District will charge a collection
trip fee of $10.00.
Service Charge - In the event the District is called out after
normal business hours for a frozen service, the District
will inspect and determine where the service line
is frozen. All costs associated with inspecting and/or
thawing a frozen service line on private property
shall now be borne by the customer. See related article
entitled WINTER TIPS on page 2.
Damaged Meter Charge - If a water meter is damaged
due to improper care by a customer, the customer will
now be charged a labor rate of $26.00 per hour during
normal business hours of 7:30 am to 3:30 pm, Monday
through Friday and $39.00 per hour with a one and
one half hour minimum for other than normal business
hours for the cost of removing or replacing a damaged
meter, plus a meter replacement fee based upon the
actual purchase price of a replacement meter.
We hope you agree that these new fees are reasonable
charges for a minority of our customers who, until
now, have caused a variety of costs to be absorbed
by all customers. For a complete listing of the District’s
Terms and Conditions, visit our new web site at www.kkw.org/customerservice/terms.html.
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Terms and Conditions