The City of Mount Vernon will be giving a credit to Colonial Estates for an overbilling on their water bill of $104,475.32.
City administrator Chris Nosbisch said the issue was discovered following maintenance on the water meter in the trailer park.
“The whole trailer park is served by one master meter,” Nosbisch said. “From that master meter, private lines and services are then distributed to all the trailers, and the billing happens from Colonial Estates.”
Nosbisch said that for the longest time, the city believed the water meter was reading at 100 gallons per tick, but during the maintenance when the meter was removed, it was discovered the meter was rated at 500 gallons. The city made an adjustment in their billing software, noting the meter reads new multiplier, but put the multiplier in the wrong spot, contributing to more massive bills for water for the park.
“What that amounted to was a $5,200 bill suddenly became a $10,000 bill, more than double what they had paid for water services in the past,” Nosbisch said. “The property management fund said they weren’t going to pay that, and got lawyers involved.”
The city eventually discovered the multiplier that had errantly been charging too much to Colonial Estates, and adjusted the bill back to the rate they should be charged for usage.
At that time, the bill for Colonial Estates was $160,370.68.
Nosbisch said that Colonial Estates had never paid that dollar amount, that the bill was under contention. During that time, Colonial Estates also had a water leak on their main line, which provided them a credit to have fixed.
The reduction for the credit and other items brought the bill to $104,475.32.
That’s the amount Nosbisch was asking for forgiveness on and a credit to Colonial Estates.
“I want to credit that back to them, knowing full well money never changed hands,” Nosbisch said. “I want to publicly go on record and say that this is a credit. While unintentional, we did overbill Colonial Estates.”
A new water meter has also been ordered for Colonial Estates, and the bill is averaging between $3,500 to $6,500 a month.
Council member Stephanie West asked if the overcharge had impacted bills to residents in the trailer court.
Nosbisch said the billing there was not the city’s responsibility, and he was unaware how they billed the residents.
Council member Scott Rose said by the city clarifying, it gives residents transparency to pursue action if their billing was impacted. Rose also asked if there were other locations that have one master read in the community the way Colonial Estates does.
Nosbisch said Colonial Estates is the only one, and moving forward, the city would never allow something like this again.
“The issue is if we have an issue with an individual water line, we can’t just shut off that line, we have to shut the master feed, impacting every one at that location,” Nosbisch said.