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ECUA: Your Bill Is In The Mail
February 4, 2009
The bill is in the mail — that’s the word from the Emerald Coast Utilities Authority.
ECUA took over the former Allied Waste residential waste service in North Escambia back on January 1. But former Allied customers did not receive a bill during January.
That was because there was a delay in converting Allied’s billing database to the software used by ECUA, according to Nathalie Bowers, ECUA spokesperson.
The January ECUA bills for North Escambia residents were to be printed last Friday, stuffed in envelopes on Monday and put into Tuesday’s mail. Many customers reported receiving their ECUA bill on Wednesday.
While Allied billed quarterly, ECUA bills a monthly rate of $17.99, a reduction from $19.62 charged by Allied Waste. A small fuel charge of 45 cents is added to the base rate.
ECUA bills can be paid with a mailed check, automatic checking draft, at ECUA’s office in the Ellyson Industrial Park, at Wachovia Bank locations, online or on the phone. There is an additional $1.95 fee for using the pay-by-phone or online payment option.
For more information on ECUA billing, visit ECUA’s web site.
Comments
15 Responses to “ECUA: Your Bill Is In The Mail”
I disagree completely with the once a week trash pick up, I already recycle and I am a single person living alone, who doesn’t use much garbage, however my garbage can is full almost every week. I simply can’t imagine this working for a family with a much larger amount of garbage. In addition to that I live on a short dead end street with only about 6 houses on it and every morning when I walk outside I smell nothing but stinky garbage for at least the 2-3 days prior to our trash pick up day. How sanitary is that? Not very in my opinion, and keep in mind this is during the cold weather months I hate to imagine how nasty its going to be this summer with temperatures in the upper 90’s most of the time. Whether or not ECUA has raised their prices in the past or not is irrelevant. The fact still remains they have cut their service in half and my bill is still about $2 more than it was 2 years ago, no matter how you look at it that equals a 100% increase in their profit margin from last year. I don’t know where to find out what their profit margin from last year was but I would be interested to know. As for the recycling containers, I was told it only takes 2 weeks to get them, not 6 weeks as one of the previous comments said, I ordered mine and got it in about 3 weeks, after 2 phone calls.
Has anyone figured out why our service was cut in half, but our charge was not ?? So we’re paying twice as much for half the service. This should be interesting since most of us haven’t dealt with ECUA before. I don’t like having to pay the bill monthly.
Some responses to readers’ comments:
1. ECUA, after taking over the County Commission’s residential sanitation program in 1993 (the Commission wanted to sell it, and ECUA agreed to buy it), did not have a single rate increase for more than ten years. Rate increases have been necessary in the last four years because of these factors:
(a) Hurricanes Ivan and Dennis caused additional operating costs
(b) Hurricanes Katrina and Rita created strong demand for CDL drivers, and ECUA had to increase sanitation-driver pay in order to retain qualified drivers
(c) The County Commission enacted a “flow-control” ordinance that increased operating costs of ECUA (and of Allied Waste, which responded by leaving the market)
(d) The County Commission enacted an eight-percent increase in the tipping fee at Perdido Landfill
These four factors combined to force ECUA to increase its sanitation rate in the last four years.
In addition to the rate increase, ECUA established a “fuel recovery fee” that is an add-on to the basic rate. This fuel recovery fee was $1.40 per month in the last quarter of 2008. In the first quarter of 2009, it will be $0.45 per month, reflecting the drop in fuel costs. This fee is identified on the bill as “Fee due to CTNY [County] ordinance,” for an arcane reason that I will not go into at this time.
2. Will ECUA raise the rate after “eliminating the competition”? I will mention again: ECUA operated its sanitation program for more than ten years without a rate increase. ECUA had an exclusive franchise in its service area throughout those years, but did not take advantage of its customers by imposing unnecessary rate increases. ECUA’s current rate is $4 per month less than the rate charged by the City of Pensacola to city residents.
Garbage collection is provided in most jurisdictions in a non-competitive manner, whether by a government body or by a private company operating through a franchise from a government body. Allied Waste operated through a non-competitive franchise in its former area.
Will ECUA rate increases occur? It is possible that a rate increase will be imposed for the next fiscal year, beginning on October 1. The County Commission has already approved an eight-percent tipping-fee increase, to take effect at that time, and this will add to ECUA’s operating costs. A hurricane here could add to ECUA’s operating costs. A hurricane anywhere else on the Gulf Coast could raise the price for keeping CDL-certified sanitation drivers. However, ECUA will not increase its rates simply because it has eliminated the competition.
3. What about the $1.95 charge for paying by credit card? ECUA has contracted with a company, Speedpay, to provide one method of payment. Speedpay pockets the $1.95. ECUA receives none of that charge. Customers who don’t want to pay the $1.95 have cheaper alternatives.
ECUA has searched for another company that would provide the bill-payment service at a lower charge, but has not found one. To companies that provide such services, ECUA is a small-scale operation which offers relatively little business to the bill-payment company; consequently, the charge-per-customer is relatively high. A bigger enterprise, such as Gulf Power, may obtain such a service for its customers at a much lower price and may even choose to eat the cost itself rather than require the customer to pay for the service.
If ECUA were to eat the $1.95 charge itself, it would have to increase the sanitation rate on all customers enough to cover the cost incurred. I have not supported that option.
ECUA gains nothing from customer use of Speedpay. I encourage customers to use a less expensive method of bill payment.
4. ECUA has bungled the start-up of the new sanitation program, including the takeover of the Allied franchise area and the initiation of recycling. ECUA has tried to do too much at one time. I apologize to all customers who did not receive (or have not received) a recycling can in a timely way.
Anyone with a complaint about ECUA is invited to contact me either by email (larry@larrywalker.com) or by telephone (723-6094).
Just a note on the $1.95 charge– It is a charge made by Speedpay, the third party vendor that administers the payment, and doesn’t go to ECUA. An alternative online solution would be to use one’s banknig institution, and set up online bill payments with your bank. That process is usually free, depending on the bank.
I thought the ECUA wanted to all this hard work to be efficient? I suggest we all go green, but the $1.95 charge/penalty for paying on line is rediculous. ECUA needs to come into the modern world of 2009 instead of the 1960’s. Dr. Walker (dist 5) needs explain the $1.95 additional cost when he attends all the church mens breakfast on Sunday mornings.
I guess the .45 cents is what the gas tax is.
CNTY = COUNTY
Received my bill for 1/01/09 to 1/31/09——17.99
Fee Due To CNTY ORD. .45
Total Current Charges 18.44
Prev. Balance or Transter .00
Total Amount Due 18.44
What is the .45 charge ? I do not live in Century !!!!
And the bill was in the mail today Wednesday, February 4. I have to admit though, I liked the quarterly billing better than the monthly.
And the bill was in the mail today Wednesday, February 4. I have to admit though I liked the quarterly billing better than the monthly.
If you have a recycle can you should be happy. For the ones of us with no can that ordered them in December, we have reason not to be happy. I think 3 to 4 weeks is ample time to wait, but the 6 week wait is really starting to bother me. Congratulations “happy recycler” on having a can and a successful transfer to ECUA. I had no problems with BFI either, and I hope not to have any problems with ECUA once I get the can. A once weekly pick up will work just fine if they will get me the cans I need.
Ditto your thoughts Mr Happy, but most of thier posts make me laugh, and that in these times is much needed!
Just throwing out a persoanl observation. Our family has had not one issue in regards to pick-up dates/times or the frequency there of. I had none with Allied/BFI either, but wanted to let all know that one can a week is working great, and my recycling can after two weeks is about ready to head to the curb next week. Plenty of conatiner space, and good service so far.
All working well here, hope nobody else has had bad luck either.
I am sick to tears of all the complaining over recycling woes. Any new program is going to have bugs to work through – GIVE IT A CHANCE. When several months have passed and you are still having problems THEN make a stink. It just seems like a way of life for some people to gripe about everything. I will never read another comment on this website because the same people are so negative about every subject.
I think its a shame that they charge to pay your bill online or by phone. I pay all my bills online, and not one charges for it. I guess like always if theres a way to make a dollar they (ecua) will do it.
I think I’ll give them half of the amount on the bill for services received because there was no recycling available during the month of January as promised. “ECUA makes record profit in January” should be the headline because the trash trucks ran only half as much and they charge nearly the same rate for the old twice a week service. What a deal… NOT!!!
On another note, I’ll give ECUA until March, and then they’ll be raising the rate for service because ECUA has eliminated the competition and they have us bent over the proverbial barrel.