by Dennis Dalman
Many Sartell residents will get brand-new water meters, a decision approved late August by the city council.
Most of the current meters, 3,850 of them, are very old manual ones and perhaps unreliable. They will be replaced by new ones in an agreement between the city and Ferguson Enterprises LLC of Blaine. The new meters can be read via radio waves.
The total cost of the meters, plus their installation by Ferguson, is about $1,328,000. The bill will be paid for mostly by a five-year loan at 1.4 percent, with other payments coming from the annual city water fund.
Each new meter costs $275.
The meters are expected to register much more accurate readings as to how much water a residence or business uses. That’s the good news; the bad news is some residents could be hit with a big one-time water bill.
Rob Voshell, the city’s financial director, explained it for the Newsleader:
Currently, he said, the city asks residents with older meters to read their meters each billing cycle and submit the results to the city so they can be billed for water usage.
Once the new meters are installed, a final meter reading from the old meter will be done by a city official. It’s possible, Voshell said, that someone with an older meter has not submitted a meter reading to the city for a long time, thus the city was estimating what that resident would owe for each billing cycle based on the old reading.
Once that final reading is taken (when the new meters are installed), it’s possible the resident could have a water-bill credit, but it’s also possible some residents used more water than was forecast by city estimates, and so they could owe a larger amount that had not been billed over time by the city.
Voshell and city-council members were concerned that some people might feel an awful financial pinch by suddenly owing big bills for past water usage, perhaps in some cases in excess of $1,000. The city will offer a long-term payment plan for affected residents, but those residents must reach out to the city so payment arrangements can be determined.
Currently, all Sartell businesses and most residents on the east side of the river have had old water meters replaced with new ones within the last two years. Thus, they will not be affected by the upgrade project.
The city will notify residents who need new-meter updates in late 2021 and early 2022. There will be installation times extended to evenings and also on Saturdays, Voshell noted.
