XENIA — According to the director of Greene County Sanitary Engineering Department, his staff is continuing to work hard to address billing concerns from water and sewer customers.
After experiencing unexpected problems with the department’s new billing program this summer, bills were mailed out to customers Aug. 2, combining usage from June, July and August. The bills were not only three times the amount as a normal one-month bill — but were even higher for some, due to estimated charges.
According to county officials, September bills — mailed out the first week of September — were supposed to include actual reading or usage with one month of current charges plus credit for any over-payment due to too-high estimates. Customers that were given low estimates were to be charged for the difference.
Volkerding said call volume in the office is still very high.
“Our staff is working to answer calls when they come in and we have costumers walking in,” he said.
Volkerding advises customers to look at their bills and their usage and see if it is within normal usage range. If they have questions about their bills, they can call the office at 937-562-7457. County phone systems are experiencing some problems handling the high volume of calls, which means hold times can be a little long, especially during lunch hours.
The majority of the 20,000 bills sent out per month are correct, but a small percentage have problems, Volkerding said.
“We are working with our customers to correct those when we see them,” he said.
Volkerding is confident that over time, the problems will resolve and the new billing system will prove beneficial to customers.
“I think as we learn to use it, identify some of the problems and correct those, I think it has a lot of features that will benefit us,” he said. “But it’s new, we are learning how to use it … The more we use it the better we get at it.”
Along with time, practice, too, will help.
“Every time we go through the process it’ll get better. We are trying to get everything back on schedule.”
