Portland backing off a little on monthly water bills
Our spies report that the Portland water bureau is withdrawing its proposal to require most or all of its customers to switch to monthly billing, instead of the current quarterly bills. But the bureau's reportedly still going ahead with a plan to let ratepayers "opt in" to a monthly plan if they want. Given City Hall's history with computers and billing, the "improvements" will probably wind up being more expensive than anyone ever imagined.
The apparent point of the switch was to try to camouflage the huge rate hikes being inflicted on water customers. Now that they've been talked out of mandatory monthly bills for all, we wouldn't be surprised if the city bureaucrats lose interest in the whole idea. Let's hope so.
| Posted at 12:46 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (4)
Allowing a system with monthly and quarterly payment systems seems inefficient and will almost certainly require more expense to administer.
Posted by NW Portlander | May 4, 2012 1:51 PM
"opt-in" will become mandatory once they get the bugs worked out.
Posted by PD | May 4, 2012 2:22 PM
It's not a "bug" - it's a "feature".
Posted by Max | May 4, 2012 3:09 PM
So does that mean they really are saving '$68 million' because of the variance.....on their website they showed taking away 2% of the proposed increase for that, and then adding it back in for the monthly billing=+2%, even though it was only est. to cost around $2M.
Is this a new math where -$68M, +2M=0?? It doesn't seem to balance out to me.....but then we have to get paper from China probably since the local mill that could recycle paper wasn't given any business by the city.
Posted by ConfusedbyTheMath | May 4, 2012 4:40 PM