Sewer Billing Cycle to Change For Overton Customers

By VERNON ROBISON

Moapa Valley Progress

The Clark County Water Reclamation District (CCWRD) is making a change to the way it bills many of its Overton customers for sewer service. In July, about 200 local customers who have been receiving monthly bills from the district will be changed to a quarterly billing schedule.
“Our whole system has always been on a quarterly billing system,” explained CCWRD spokesman Marty Flynn. “The only exception to that has been a couple of hundred customers in Overton.”

In 2008, during the last round of rate adjustments, Overton customers were facing a significant increase in their rates due to major improvements which were made in the system, Flynn said. At that time, community leaders requested that Overton customers be given the option of paying a monthly bill; just to help soften the budgetary impact of the increase. The district made special arrangement at that time to allow for that.
“It was just to help people through the transition,” Flynn said. “But the intent was only to have it be in effect for a couple of years while people got accustomed to the rate change.”

The monthly cycle was an opt-in program. It was not automatically extended to all customers. Only customers who made a special request were put on the monthly billing cycle. That added up to only about 200 of the 740 customers on the system.

More recently, the CCWRD has updated its billing system. The new system has made it difficult to continue the monthly billing cycle for just those few Overton customers, Flynn said.

So on July 1, all customers will be returned to the quarterly billing cycle.
“It will, no doubt, be an adjustment for some people who are used to a monthly payment,” Flynn said. “But there has been no rate change. And customers will have the option of paying for the whole service year at once for an additional discount.”

Flynn said that all Overton customers will be receiving a notice in the mail this week explaining the change.