Lebanon Board of Public Works gave its approval last week for changes to when their meters are read and when they will receive their bills.
At a meeting on Wednesday of last week, the city’s Board of Public Works took action to change the monthly dates for meter reading and bill mailing in response to customer complaints.
Public Works Director Richard Shockley said the city utilities department has received customer concerns about receiving bills right before the due date, leaving little time left for customers to make payments. As a result, changes were approved last week to the customer service manual.
“To better serve our customers, changing the dates will allow our customers to receive the bill in advance of the due date. In doing so, the dates of the meter read date, bill mail date, and due date, had to be changed as reflected,” he said in a written report to the board.
He talked about the issue at last Wednesday’s Board of Public Works meeting.
“We’ve had some trouble getting the bills out into the postal system and for the customer to actually receive it and have time to get it paid,” he said. “There were some cases where they were actually getting the bill in their mail box and it was already past due. We’re trying to get this to where it works better for our customers.”
Meters will be read and bills mailed to customers on or before the new dates. Meters that were read on the 22nd will now be read on the 2nd. Bills that were mailed on the 29th will now be mailed on the 9th. Meters read on the 22nd will be read on the 12th. Bills mailed on the 9th will now be mailed on the 19th. Meters read on the 12th will now be read on the 22nd. Bills that were mailed on the 19th will now be mailed on the 28th.
Payments that were due on the 20th will now be due on the 30th. Payments due on the 30th will now be due on the 10th of the month. Payments that were due on the 10th of the month will now be due on the 20th of the month.
All three Public Works Board members present, Don Anderson, Ted Dahl and LeAnn Mather voted in favor of the change. Board member Jamie Goforth was not present.
Also, Shockley told the board that a recently approved ordinance from the city council on utilities manual changes had adjusted the Board of Public Workds spending authority from $100,000 to $250,000.
"So you will be seeing some bigger ticket items come up for your approval," Shockley said.
In other business, Electrical Superintendent Travis Long reported that crews repaired 12 street lights and responded to eight outages in the past month. They also completed electrical infrastructure for Fremont Apartments, buildings A and B and installed the transformer serving Fremont Apartment. The also installed meters for buildings C and D.
