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Hernando Today

County Tweaks Water Meter Bills

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By MICHAEL D. BATES

Hernando Today

Published: December 10, 2008

BROOKSVILLE - Residents may soon notice their monthly water bill statement looks a bit different.

Starting toward the end of this month or early January, the Hernando County Utilities Department will begin realigning and consolidating its water meter-reading routes, resulting in more efficiency and a cost savings by reducing travel time for meter readers.

Utilities Director Joseph Stapf said readers will read all the homeowners' meters in the same geographical area at the same time, rather than travel several miles a day to another region.

The utilities department will reduce the number of billing cycles per month from five to four. That means the number of meters to be read within each cycle will increase.

Customers may notice a change in their meter-read date when they receive their bills. The date they receive the bills may also change.

For the first billing cycle after this transition, some customers may receive a bill less than a month after the last bill they received (under the old schedule).

Because of the cycle change, some customers may receive a bill a couple weeks after paying the previous statement. If so, they shouldn't be concerned, Stapf said.

Those bills will be prorated to reflect the shortened billing period, he said.

They can expect a regular monthly statement beginning in February 2009.
Stapf said the county will realize a cost savings, just from the cutback in the number of drive hours of staff.

How much money will be saved is not known yet, he said.

Also, this realignment could put Hernando County into a position to switch from a monthly to a bi-monthly billing cycle in the future, he said.

But before that happens, Stapf said he would seek customer feedback.

For more information, call the customer service department at 754-4037.

Reporter Michael D. Bates can be reached at 352-544-5290 or mbates@hernandotoday.com.

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