Glenville water bill deadline extended

PHOTOGRAPHER: Stephen Williams

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GLENVILLE — Town residents will be given until July 13 to pay their water bills, without penalty.

The Town Board voted Wednesday to extend the deadline an additional 10 days — from July 2 to July 13 — because conversion to a new townwide water meter reading system delayed the annual billing of town residents.

The bills, normally sent out on June 1, weren’t mailed until the week of June 11, and initially were to be due by July 2.

A $1.8 million meter replacement project installed or replaced thousands of water meters at homes and businesses in the town. Town officials said the new meters allow the town to read water use automatically, rather than relying on residents to fill out and mail cards providing their water use information.

“It’s a one-time thing because of the conversion of the software for the change from manual read to automatic read,” said Town Supervisor Chris Koetzle. “It required a little more finessing than we realized.”

The town bills residents for their water use once a year. Koetzle said the current billing cycle required sending about 6,400 bills, totaling about $1.9 million.

Koetzle said some people may see higher bills than they’re used to, because the last manual reading cards were sent in April 2017, and this year’s automatic bill reading was done in late May.

“People could see as much as an additional six weeks of water use on their bills,” he said. “Next year, it will be lower, assuming they use the same amount of water.”

There is no impact on residents of towns that buy municipal water from Glenville, including parts of Ballston and Charlton.