PELL CITY – Some city officials were surprised and angered to learn the city is owed more than $270,000 in unpaid water, sewer and garbage fees.“I wasn’t aware of the exact dollar amount, but I knew it was up there,” said Councilman Greg Gossett.
He said the large amount of money owed to the city surprises him.
Gossett said what bothers him is that nobody brought this matter to the attention of anyone before it got out of hand or escalated to that much money.
“At any give time, the city would be owed $2, $3, $4,000, but nothing like that,” Gossett said. “This is a real concern for me, especially with what the city is facing financially.”
The city was cited by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management for major sewer overflows in February 2006. That same year the city reached a special consent agreement with ADEM to eliminate its sewer overflow problems.
According to the consent decree, the city has until 2012 to complete work mandated by ADEM or face stiff fines.
In testimony last week during a trial involving St. Clair County Homebuilders, which challenged the city’s implementation of new sewer impact fees, officials revealed it will cost the city an additional $14 million to complete work required by ADEM, money the city does not have at the present time.
Councilman Donnie Todd said he was also concerned about the unpaid bills to the city, and why and how it happened.
“Not only am I surprised, but I’m upset,” Todd said.
He said the amount owed to the city includes a $42,000 unpaid water bill by a single water customer.
Todd said apparently the water meter to the customer’s property was read low, but the error was found and should have been corrected.
“It was not,” he said. “Obviously if that gets resolved, it lowers the total amount owed to the city, but I’m upset we were owed this much money.”
Gossett and Todd questioned whether policies were followed when this much money is owed to the city.
“Apparently people were behind and still given service,” Todd said. “That’s a horrible business practice. Not only is policy not being followed, they weren’t being called to task.”
City officials said water, sewer and garbage bills are sent out the first and the 15th of each month. Customers have 15 days to pay their bills. If customers do not pay on time, a late notice is sent out.
Customers have 15 more days to pay their water bills, along with late fees, or their water is cut off.
“People hadn’t been cut off like they should have been. If they had, we wouldn’t be owed this much money,” Todd said. “I’m furious.”
City clerk Jennifer Brown said the debt goes back as far as 1994.
“We won’t be able to collect all the debt because of the statute of limitations,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s three or five years.”
She said the total amount of $270,380 owed to the city was as of Sept. 30, 2007, and does not include any additional money owed or paid to the city this past fiscal year.
“It does include some current customers, but there’s no way I can come up with how much,” she said.
Brown said she believes large amounts of money from uncollected water, sewer and garbage bills will not surface again after she took preventative steps by hiring a professional bill collector to collect unpaid debt owed to the city.
“There was no procedure in place to find or collect from people who owed the city money,” Brown said.
She recommended, and the council approved last month, hiring a Birmingham law firm that specializes in collections to collect all unpaid or delinquent bills for the city.
Also last month, the city fired longtime employee Diane White, who was the Water Department’s utility clerk supervisor, overseeing water meter readers and cashiers/receptionists in the Water Department office at City Hall.
White’s termination letter alleges she violated personnel rules pertaining to delinquent utility bills.
The termination letter also alleges White deliberately falsified or forged records and used her official position for personal gain.
White was not available for immediate comment Wednesday.
The firing of the employee sparked an investigation by the St. Clair County District Attorney’s Office and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.
City officials said the ABI began its investigation last week.
Two weeks ago, The Daily Home formally requested inspection of Water Department records, but the request was denied by city officials, citing the pending criminal investigation.
“Those records are currently going to be reviewed as part of a criminal investigation by ABI, so we do not want to release these records until it has been determined by the investigating agency that it would not be detrimental to their investigation,” city attorney Robert Minor said in September. “Once it has been determined that the release of these records will not hinder the investigation, they will be made available in accordance with city policy and state law.”
