1. Purpose
Caveland Environmental Authority (“CEA”) strives to provide to all of its customers a means for the resolution of delinquent water and/or wastewater accounts. CEA currently has a policy in effect that provides that if at any time a residential customer of water and/or wastewater services provided by CEA shall become delinquent on his or her respective water services and/or wastewater account, the CEO of the Corporation has the authority, in his discretion, to enter into an agreement with said customer authorizing said customer to make late and/or partial payments, prior to disconnecting said customer’s services. However, not all account issues are capable of being resolved, and CEA wishes to provide a consistent, fair, and equitable policy providing guidelines and procedures for the disconnection of water and/or wastewater sewer services of its customers following the non-payment of applicable charges, in the even CEA’s effots to work with a particular customer is unsuccessful.
Accordingly, CEA adopts the following water and/or wastewater disconnection policies.
2. Applicability
These policies shall apply to any overdue account as follows:
a) Any account with an outstanding balance of no less than one billing cycle;
b) Any account that has failed to abide by the terms of any agreement entered into with CEA for the resolution of past due charges or outstanding balances; or
c) Any account that is in arrears for whatever reason, including non-sufficient funds on a check and/or automatic bank withdrawal from or on behalf of customer.
3. Policies and Procedures
Delinquencies
Any bill not paid by the due date indicated on the monthly statement will be considered in arrears and will be assessed a late penalty of ten percent (10%), which shall be assessed to the account the day following the due date. Each bill will also provide a “cut-off date.” A customer will have additional time to pay the account from the date of applied penalty to the cut-off date indicated on the monthly statement, but should a bill not be paid by the indicated cut-off date, the account will be considered delinquent and subject to cut-off status.
Payment Arrangements
Payment arrangements are available for customers who may be experiencing financial difficulties; provided, however, payment arrangements must be requested prior to the cut-off date indicated on the monthly statement. Payment extensions cannot extend past the next billing cycle due date and must be paid by any agreed upon arrangements/extension date. The courtesy of payment arrangement/extension will be granted to customers on an as-needed basis, in the discretion of CEA, and so long as the arrangement is honored by the customer. Failure to honor any payment arrangement may result in the immediate disconnection of services and may preclude the customer from the benefit and the courtesy of a future arrangement/extension being granted.
Cut-Off Status
When a customer’s account reaches cut-off status and appears on the monthly-generated cut-off report, the following procedure will be following:
a) Service technicians will leave a courtesy tag at the customer’s residence or place of business for a first and second time that the customer’s account appears on the report. The courtesy tag will provide the amount of the bill due plus and additional trip charge of $25.00. If the customer has not requested a payment arrangement/extension, the customer will then have until the end of the next business day to pay the amount due. If the amount is not paid, disconnection of services may immediately occur. Once services are disconnected, the customer will then be responsible for paying any past due amount, including any trip charges assessed, plus a $50.00 reconnection fee before reconnection can occur.
b) Any customer’s account that appears on the monthly-generated cut-off report three or more consecutive times shall result in an immediate disconnection of services. Service technicians will leave a notification tag that services have been disconnected, along with the amount of bill due plus the $50.00 reconnection fee before reconnection can occur. Reconnection of services for any customer after normal business hours will incur a $75.00 reconnection fee.
Download a copy of this policy here.