(a) Payment plan.
(1) Customers may enter into a payment plan to pay delinquent utility bills. They will be asked to make a "reasonable down payment" and "reasonable instalments", and be required to sign a payment agreement. Do not sign it unless you agree to the terms. If customers do not pay the payment as agreed, the City of Ironton Water Department will shut off service to delinquent account. If customers do not pay the delinquent utility bills the City of Ironton Water Department does not have to negotiate an agreement before it shuts off your service.
(2) If you and the utility cannot agree on an instalment plan, you can file a dispute with the Public Service Director (PSD). While the PSD investigates and attempts to resolve your dispute, your service should not be shut off. However, you must pay all bills not in dispute.
(3) The Mayor or his or her designee is authorized to establish a payment plan in special circumstances when needed and is further authorized to cease such plan for any delinquency or non-payment. Generally, such payment plan shall be in writing.
(b) Unusual circumstances. The Mayor or his or her designee is authorized under unusual and/or special circumstances, nonrecurring and rare in nature, to provide reasonable adjustments based upon such mitigating conditions which appear to require such adjustment to a utility bill. The burden of proof shall rest with the customer and there is absolutely no obligation on the city to provide any such adjustment. The Mayor or his or her designee shall maintain a file of any such adjustments granted under this policy for review by the Ironton City Council.
(c) High usage adjustments.
(1) All leaks in the consumers water system, whether detected by the party to whom the bill is sent or a representative of the city shall be repaired within 72 hours of its detection. If the leak is detected by a city representative and the leak is not repaired within the required time, is creating a hazard, may cause damage to other property or, in the opinion of the city representative is causing a significant loss of water, water service shall be discontinued until the leak has been repaired. In the event of an underground leak in the consumers water system that is not the result of any negligence on the part of the consumer or owner of the property, the consumer's largest bill for the billing period during which the leak occurred will be adjusted upon request by the customer and submission of a copy of the plumber's bill for the repair work to the Office. The adjustment will be based upon the following formula:
A = Water consumption in billing period during which the teak occurred.
B = Water consumption for normal water used the current year.
C = 0.5
D = Amount of consumption for which customer will be billed.
D= (A-B) x C + B
(2) Only one bill adjustment will be made per consumer for any given 12 month period. If the adjustment involves rental property, the adjustment shall be recorded against the rental unit for the 12 month period rather than the landlord's name. At the same time, the renter's name shall be listed as a customer of record who received an adjustment under this policy requires the approval of the Mayor or his or her appointee.
(Ord. 19-09, passed 3-14-2019)