Andrews to enforce charging water connect fee

    Andrews – The town can no longer allow residents who haven’t paid their water bill by the 30th of each month to escape without penalties.
    Starting immediately, town officials will disconnect water service to any account that has not been paid by the 30th of the month. The account with then be charged a $75 reconnect fee, which town officials haven’t enforced since at least 2001.
    “We have to start running the town like a business,” Mayor James Reid said. “If we slack in one area, someone else has to pay for it. If we give someone a pass on paying their bill two months in a row, it's not going to get any easier for them to pay in that third month.”
    About 16 percent of the town’s 1,302 water customers are late in paying their bill each month, according to officials who say 207 accounts were paid late in July and 218 accounts were paid late in August.
    The rear of customers’ water bill indicates there is a $15 penalty for paying after the 20th of the month. It also says water service will be disconnected if the bill is not paid by the 30th of the month, and that a $75 fee must be paid before service can resume.
    Town officials have been charging the $15 late fee, but they only disconnected service on accounts that had an outstanding balance of more than $200.
    It’s been this way for as long as officials can remember, but the cash-strapped town can no longer afford to be lenient.
    “Going forward, every time we cut off someone’s water, we're actually going to pull the meter,” Reid said. “Without the meter, they can't get water at all unless they straight-pipe it, which will result in criminal charges. We're taking this seriously.”
    When asked how much money the town had forfeited in not collecting reconnect fees over the years, the mayor said, “It’s in the thousands. It also costs us money to cut off someone’s water and to go out and turn it back on.”
    “The town has done an injustice to its residents by letting this slide,” Reid added. “We can't do that anymore. Water bills are not that hard to pay if you plan them like you do your cable bill or your power bill. You cannot live without water.”