From Groveland City Manager Mike Hein
Over the past three weeks, we’ve been exploring why some utility customers received water bills in October that were higher than expected. It was and remains our highest priority as most of us live in Groveland and you are our friends, families and neighbors.
On October 1, 2024, a new tiered rate structure went into effect that changed charges for potable water, sewer and irrigation. The tiered structure was strongly encouraged by state and regional water management agencies and will help us pay for upgrades to our aging water infrastructure.
As a result of this rate change, some customers saw their bills decrease but most were about 45% higher than before.
However, some customers alerted us their bills were well above the 45% increase – and we set out to find out why.
After thoroughly analyzing billing data, here’s what we’ve discovered:
- Additional Days in the Billing Cycle. In an effort to close out our 2023-2024 fiscal year that ended September 30, we began to read meters earlier than normal. This caused most customers to be billed for an average of 36 days of water usage rather than the 30 or 31 days in a typical month.
For some customers whose meters couldn’t be read digitally, the billing cycle was even longer because we paused our door-to-door manual reads on October 7 to prepare for the arrival of Hurricane Milton. The pause meant that some customers had even more days in their billing cycle, some as many as 52 days.
- Higher Irrigation Tiers. With more days in the billing cycle, many irrigation customers were automatically bumped into higher, more expensive tiers even though they didn’t change their irrigation routines.
- Power Disruptions May Have Played a Role. Hurricanes Helene (September 26) and Milton (October 10) caused widespread power outages in the city. Although we cannot verify this had a direct impact, we do know power outages and surges can cause irrigation timers to reset. When the power returns, homeowners may end up using much more water for irrigation than they realize.
These things don’t happen in a typical month, but we should have seen what was coming and mitigated the effects before the bills were sent. That didn’t happen and we offer you our deepest apologies for creating confusion and frustration.
Here’s what we’re doing to make it right:
- All accounts will be credited for any usage above 31 days. We will recalculate the bill you received in November, and you will see the credit on your next bill. To allow time for the recalculations, that bill will likely arrive in early January (meaning customers will receive two bills in January).
- For 120 days, all irrigation rates will be capped at Tier Three. This will give you time to better understand the tiers, check your irrigation systems and potentially find opportunities to lower usage.
Going forward, we will:
- Provide three months of consecutive notices prior to any new rate increases. We know many of you were unaware of the rate change and we know we need to significantly improve our communication with you.
- Standardize our billing cycle to 31 days, even if it takes us longer to read your meters.
- Post a monthly report on our website to update you on revenue received from utility customers compared to what was originally forecast. This will create greater transparency on how much customers are contributing to the capital project and if we are on track or require adjustments.
- Replace meters that are not currently reading (about 800) and swap out all old meters (about 5,600) so that everyone is on the same system. Our goal is to have a new meter in every home by mid-2026. The new system will allow you to view your usage and provide complete transparency.
- Develop new systems to ensure customers receive responses within 24 hours. Too many inquiries went unanswered, and we must improve our responsiveness.
- Public education on rates, water consumption and conservation. There are some simple adjustments that could make a big difference in water use, especially irrigation.
- Introduce a new Irrigation Audit Program in which our water conservation specialist will visit your homes and HOAs to personally check your systems and provide helpful insights.
- Develop a standardized and transparent method of calculating the base charge in the event a meter cannot be read.
With gratitude and appreciation,
Mike
