Water Usage Question

[Diane1774]

This may have been asked and answered previously, but can someone please explain what the following charges are for:
1) $60.00 annual water usage fee
2) $10.00 water admin fee on each bill
3) $1.00 electric admin fee on each bill

I’m not interested in creating a debate based on opinion; I simply want clarification on what these charges are and what the money goes towards. Would these figures / line items be found on our P&L? If so, where would I find that (not the budget, or the total expenditures, but an actual line item break down of what the money is spent on)?

Simple math on just the admin fees:
* 1560 lots, equates to $15,600 for each water bill and $1,560 for each electric bill. If the bill comes out 6x per year, that’s $93,600 for the water and $9,360 for the electric, for a total of $102,960 in utility admin fees.

[breezesocks]

You have asked some very good questions and I will anxiously be awaiting a reply from a Board Member.  My water bill was $.12, yet I paid a $10 administration fee for what I am assuming is the charge to read my meter and for the office to send me a bill.  To put this in proper perspective, the administration fee was 8,333 percent MORE THAN the actual water usage bill.  

My electric bill was $4.84 and the administration fee was $1.00 or 21 percent of the electric usage bill.  From a business standpoint, both fees are way too high.  If River Ridge continues with this policy, I would like for the Board to consider allowing absentee property owners having their meters read only once or twice a year. In short, this policy as it currently exists is extremely unfair to those of us who do not live in River Ridge full time.

[TLMilligan]

The $60.00 is to offset the cost of the sewer system, (lines, pumps, etc...) bathhouses, (water, fixtures, heat, etc...).
Water bills are distributed every other month, there is a $5.00 fee per month to read meters, administrative fees for bills, etc....
The $1.00 administration fee for electricity is to offset the cost of reading the meters and providing the bills.

The electric meters are only read in the camping villages. Mobile home villages pay directly to Mecklenburg Electric. Water meters are throughout the entire community. Water is provided to camping villages and mobile home villages.

[Birdman]

In years past I was the Chairman of the Electrical Committee overseeing and engineering the electrical upgrades for the camping villages from 2005 till 2012 so I had a working knowledge of electrical in the camping sections. Only the camping villages pay the $1.00 Admin fee for electric because property owners in the mobile home section are billed directly by Mecklenburg Electric Coop.

In the camping sections River Ridge purchases electric power from MEC and there are master meters in the villages which are read and River Ridge is billed accordingly.
The office combines the costs for every meter read by MEC to come up with a per kilowatt hour average cost and that is what property owners are charged. There was no profit made it was a straight up break even charge.

The price per kilowatt hour charged by MEC may vary month to month and so the cost per kilowatt hour property owners pay may vary as well. That is why we pay MEC monthly and why property owners are billed monthly.

We have approx. 1,000 individual meters that have to be read in the camping villages and we pay a person to read each meter every month and to input the readings into their electronic device which are later delivered to the association office. That in itself is where a good chunk of that $1.00 admin fee goes. The mobile home section is again billed separately by MEC and would not be fair for them to pay a admin fee for something they do not use. The mobile home sections pay more per kilowatt hour than the camping section because we purchase electricity at a commercial rate for the camping section and they pay residential rates.

The association office has to individually process each electric bill each month to send to each lot owner. They have to address the bill and envelopes, fold the bill, put it in and envelope and seal the envelope. Last but not least the USPS wants their cut so on goes the stamp and it is sent on it’s way. Factor in the cost of stamps for 1,000 envelopes.

So each month we pay $1.00 admin fee which goes towards paying a person to read the meters, preparing billing for 1,000 property owners, envelopes, letter head, stamps and they have to again process the payments & receipts when received.

Now maybe things have changed since 2012 but that seems to be a lot of bang for a buck in my humble opinion.

[Diane1774]

Thank you Terry and Birdman for clarifying the electric admin fee and the $60 annual fee. Both make sense.

However, I’m still confused over the $10 water admin fee. Why is the water $10 and the electric is only $1.00? Aren’t the jobs essentially the same? And the bills come together, so it’s really reading 2 meters, with the info put onto 1 bill to be printed / stuffed / stamped etc. I don’t know all involved with this process (which is why I’m asking for clarification), but if it costs River Ridge $93,600 per year to read water meters / bill residents, we may not be very efficient. If we’re able to dive into just this area a little deeper, maybe we can find ways to be more efficient, providing an opportunity for the excess funds to be redirected towards another much needed area.

[Birdman]

I can only tell you this from my past. Two separate people read the water and electric meters. Two separate line items.
In the early 2000's we were required by jurisdictions of authority to upgrade our sewer treatment plant to current codes and standards. The association had no choice in the matter. Either comply or get fined into oblivion,
We were required by law and code to upgrade our sewage treatment plant to today's standards. That said the sewage treatment plant is now capable of treatment of all waste water generated by RR property owners which in it's self is a remarkably accomplishment.
For the record that does mean that the sanitary sewer piping leading from the villages to the sewage treatment plant are sized appropriately. They are not, trust me. All of the water and sanitary piping existing has outlived its life expectancy and needs to be replaced and upgraded. That will take 20 years or so. The electrical upgrades are now complete in the camping villages so let's move on to another major project.

[Sponsored content]