What's Happening in Auburn, WA…

Auburn officials recently announced that they will change their water billing practices soon, sending water bills for consumption and base rate every month.

The city is able to make the change in its practices because it finished a project automating its meter infrastructure in 2017. Now water utility personnel can read meters monthly, daily, weekly, or even hourly if they wish. This enables them to identify potential leaks much more quickly, as well as giving the city the option to bill customers monthly.

Since 2007, Auburn has been billing its customers monthly for the base rate for water, but billed usage bimonthly. This was because meter readers had to read approximately 14,000 meters manually, so they needed the extra time. The upshot was that the base rate bills were substantially lower than the bills that included both the base rate and the usage, which often confused consumers.

Brenda Goodson-Moore, the billing manager for the water utility, said customers often called to ask why the bill was so much higher in one month than the other. Billing monthly should solve that problem. Officials making this type of change could use flyer printing to alert consumers to the upcoming switch.

The monthly billing cycle will start with the bills Auburn sends on January 16, 2019. From then on, all water customers will be billed every month, on the third Wednesday.