Years of mistakes cause huge water bills
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. >> Undercharges for some town customers’ water usage over the past decade have resulted in dozens of bills totaling more than $1,000 being issued in an effort to recoup the missed revenue, according to the town supervisor.
One bill is for about $8,000, while a group home in the town has been billed for a whopping $23,000.
“We have 50 [customers who] ... have some sort of an amount that is due,” Supervisor Neil Bettez said. “Half of them are less than $1,000. About 25 of them have back bills that are more than $1,000.”
The undercharges were the result of some outdoor devices that display usage amounts deteriorating and not accurately reflecting the amount of water used by customers, Bettez said.
“Over time, you keep reading that outside reader, and that reader may even break,” he said. “If it’s not reading accurately ... the difference between the meter [inside the house] and the reader gets larger and larger . ... We have not done a good job of making sure we get inside reads frequently enough to not fall behind.”
Bettez said about 250 of the 330 meters in three water districts and one water and sewer district have been replaced as part of a program being funded by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. As the meters are replaced, the town is discovering which customers have been undercharged.
Bettez said the town will work out payment schedules with customers who needed them and that no one will be charged late fees or interest for not paying a large bill all at once.
New Paltz resident Fawn Tantillo, a former Ulster County legislator and currently the Legislature’s clerk, said she recently received a water bill that was $1,500 more than she expected.
Tantillo wondered whether town employees really made efforts to check the more accurate indoor meters.
“In theory, they’re supposed to leave a postcard so you can read the inside water meter for them, and nobody ever left me a postcard,” she said.
Tantillo said her back charges cover nine years, which she called far too long for the town to have gone without making a concerted effort to get accurate readings.
“This discrepancy is something they’ve known has been accumulating for years and years and years,” she said. “If they’d even stuck the postcard in with my bill, I would have done something about it.”