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Show T3tyouncil Agrees to Forgive Overage Charges impossible to produce the sample bills last month, as promised, because of difficulties diffi-culties encountered in matching up meter readings with current city billing accounts. She added the accounting problems also prevented usage figures from being included on the recent bills. resource. The Council's decision to waive the overage charges will cost the city around $40,000 in unrealized anticipated antici-pated revenue in addition to the credits given for reduced consumption during the next month. The alterations required to adjust the monthly statements state-ments also creates a monumental monu-mental bookkeeping and computer programming task for the city, according to Loble. June bill received last week is $60 and the forthcoming July statement is $40, then $20 will be credited on the following bill. "We don't want to break people," the City Manager said, "We just want them to conserve water and fix any leaks in their systems." Loble adds the city is in an excellent position as far as its water supply is concerned but asserts residents need to be more conservative with the important yet finite The City Council has agreed to forgive the overage charges on all consumer water bills mailed early last week. Instead, residential and commercial users will be required to pay only a flat $7.50 minimum monthly fee. Ar "one who has already paid their bill, will automatically have any amount above the minimum credited to their municipal account and it will be reflected on the August statements. The $7.50 fee provides users 3,000 gals, of water per month and the overage charge reflects water consumed con-sumed above that level (at $1.52 per thousand gals.). The decision means a savings sav-ings between $5 and $200 for residents on their most recent bills. The City Council decided waive the charges because the city failed, as promised, to provide consumers with a sample bill before assessing the overage charges based on readings from newly installed water meters. In addition, the statements, which represent June consumption, con-sumption, gave users no accurate indication of the amount of water they used during the period. Members of the Council felt it was unfair to assess the charges under the circumstances and decided the fees should be waived. City Manger Arlene Loble told the Record it was ... As an incentive to encourage encou-rage residents to either reduce consumption by conservation con-servation measures or repairing re-pairing leaks in their respective respect-ive systems, the difference between the June and July overage charges will be credited to the consumer's account providing the latter is less. For instance if the, |