AMR IS COMING

The Automated Meter Reading program is well underway with about 150 meters installed and working in early September.  Once all of the automated meters have been installed and tested in a substation area, members living in that respective area will be notified that after a specified date, it will no longer be necessary for them to read their meters and send in payments.

The AMR system will allow us to mail members an invoice bill each month and will significantly improve bill processing over our present procedure where we currently deal with almost 3,000 errors each month in readings submitted or calculations made by members.  The automated meter reading system will eliminate those kinds of errors.

Sending an invoice bill each month will also serve as a reminder to busy individuals who forget to send us their readings and payments; a situation which is becoming more and more common.  There have even been some months where as many as 4,000 readings and payments were not received by the due dates.  To address this growing problem, the Cooperative has implemented a procedure to mail out estimated bills to members when payments and readings are not received within two days of their due date.

IN THE MEAN TIME…

To avoid billing problems, it is important that all members read their meters and submit those readings and payments in a timely manner to insure they arrive in our office by the due date.  Members who read on the 5^th should have their payment in by the 15^th and members who read on the 20^th should have their bills in by the 30^th of the month.  Penalties are applied based solely on the date the bill is received by the Cooperative and not the date the bill’s envelope is “post marked”, but it is interesting to note that a recent letter mailed from Marion took 12 days to be delivered to our Eldorado Office.  Fortunately that letter was mailed by one of our employees and was not someone’s bill!

As previously mentioned, if readings and payment are not received within two days of the due date, an estimated bill will be mailed out.  To estimate the bill, the Cooperative will review the account history for the same month of the previous year as well as review the average of the past three month’s usage and the average of the past twelve month’s usage.  The estimated bill will be based on the highest of the three criteria used for the evaluation.  In the event it is necessary for the Cooperative to mail out a second estimated bill, a Cooperative employee will be sent to the property to obtain an accurate meter reading as a baseline for future billing and a $30 service charge will be charged to the member’s account.  The second estimated bill may also be used as a delinquent notice and may reflect a “Cut Off” date.

Once an account has received a Cut Off notice, a partial payment will not serve to keep the account active and the entire total amount due as reflected on the  invoice must be paid prior to the stated cut off date in order to avoid termination of service.