Century Imposes Fee For After-Hours Utility Reconnects

September 16, 2008

If you are a Town of Century Utilities customers and get cutoff for non-payment, it’s going to cost you more if you want your water or gas turned back out outside business hours.

Mayor Freddie McCall told the council Monday night that the town pays a minimum of two hours to a water or gas employee to turn service back on after-hours. At $18 an hour for the town’s highest paid employee that might make the after-hours call, that’s $36 the town spends to turn a person’s water back on. Add in an additional employee certified to turn the gas back on for a customer, and it’s another $36 cost to the town.

The town has a $20 reconnect fee in place for customers that are disconnected. Now, disconnected customers will be given the option of paying an additional $36 per gas or water reconnect, up to $72 total, to have their service restored after-hours or on the weekend. The customer can choose, McCall said, to wait until the next business day to have their service restored without paying the extra $36 or $72 fee.

“We have some customers that do this every month,” Town Clerk Dorothy Sims said. “They come in 10 minutes before we close.”

The utility office in Century currently closes at 3:30, and utility system employees get off at the same time. If a disconnected customer requests that their service be restored before the water or gas employees go home, that might be able to avoid the additional fees since the employee will not be called out for an after-hours reconnect.

The additional after-hours reconnect fees will not apply if the town made any error in disconnected someone’s service, McCall said.

Comments

One Response to “Century Imposes Fee For After-Hours Utility Reconnects”

  1. Kevin Bethea on September 17th, 2008 8:42 pm

    Maybe if people did not have to pay $3.50/gal for gas, and drive 50 to 100 miles a day to work, they could afford to pay their utilities before 3:20 on the last day. Now it will cost them a tank of gas to wash and cook, if they are ten minutes late with their payment. too bad they don’t have a choice in the matter. a little competition might curb some of the outragous fees the utility companies are charging these days

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News