Hiccups in the rollout of a new billing cycle for Lexington Utilities created confusion among customers
Lexington Utilities customers may have noticed a change in their utility bills this month since the company has extended due dates for all customers and have changed billing cycles for others.
Adding to the confusion are disconnection notices that were accidentally sent out in December and issues with the postal service which have delayed bills getting to customers on time.
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Tracey White, City of Lexington utility services director, said the rollout of the new utilities billing has had its challenges over the past month, but all issues should be resolved at this point.
In December, Lexington Utilities made two major changes to the billing system. The first is the extension of the date when bills are due from 10 days to 25 days. In other words, in the past customers had 10 days to pay their utilities bills from the date it was issued. Now that period is 25 days.
“We a simply trying to help our customers by giving them more time to pay,” said White. “When you get your other bills, you have up to 30 days to pay them, we just wanted to extend those due dates and give them a little more time.”
The second change is some customers may have found their billing date changed due to an adjustment in meter reading routes. White said the company has changed when consumption data is collected for some customers to coincide with the new billing due dates.
“With this technology, we can read both sides of the road. When the decision was made to make changes to the billing due dates, we thought it would be a good time to change the (meter reading) routes to make it more efficient,” said White.
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Meter data previously was collected manually and those routes remained in place once the utility switched to an automated meter reading system. This meant a meter reader may have collected data on one side of the street one day and the other side of the street the following day or later in the week. The new routes allow workers to collect all the information in that area at once, using the automated meter reading system.
Billing data will continue to be collected on a 30-day cycle, but some customers may have had their due dates adjusted by a few days. They also may notice their bill is slightly higher or lower for the month of January because of the adjustment in meter collection routes.
“If your meter reading cycle changed, January could be off. Some could have 15 or 20 days of data and some could have 45 days of data for that bill. Once you get through January, everything should be back to its normal 30 days,” said White.
White said unfortunately a “technical glitch” by the company that prints the utilities bills in December sent out letters with disconnect notices in the header. Another complication is a national slowdown by the U.S. Postal Service has delayed some customers receiving their bill, some even past their due date.
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In response to these issues, the City of Lexington Utilities has temporarily suspended late payment fees through January.
White said although it was “a little rough” in the beginning, issues with Lexington Utilities billing should be resolved at this point and in the end the changes should be a help to customers.
“We have tried to deal with this with the benefit of the customer in mind," White said. "The reason for doing all of this was to make things easier, to give people more time to pay their bills. We had a few hiccups, but everything has calmed down now and is back to normal.
General news reporter Sharon Myers can be reached at sharon.myers@the-dispatch.com. Follow her on Twitter @LexDispatchSM.
This article originally appeared on The Dispatch: Lexington Utilities struggle in rollout of new billing cycles
