The budget billing program is a free service offered to all residential customers. The program is designed to help you avoid unpredictable utility bills and make balancing your budget a little easier. Auto pay can be scheduled for budget payments as well as your regular monthly statement amounts.
Your monthly budget amount is based on the average of your actual bill charges during the previous 12-months. Any expected increase in the cost of electric and/or water and sewer are also calculated into the monthly payment when you enroll in the program. We continue to read your meter every month and your utility bill will show how much energy you used, the actual bill amount and the balance on your account. Some months you will pay less for what you actually used and some months you will pay more.
Budgets are reviewed once a year in December and a true-up billing is conducted in June. During the review process your current budget amount may be updated to reflect higher, or lower than expected usages. You will be notified via letter if there are any changes needed to your budget amount. During true-up month your billing statement will reflect either a credit or an amount owed depending upon your actual usage and budget payments received. If an amount is owed, the payment must be paid in full on or before the due date. Your new budget amount will be set for the following year and will begin the following month.
If you are unable to pay the full amount due you can set up a deferred payment plan with us for this balance, and continue with your new budget into the next year. While we monitor budgets twice a year we request you occasionally watch the actual amounts on your statements and call us if you notice larger than expected credits, or amounts due, to prevent a large balance at the end of the budget year.
To see what your avearge might be, you can sign up for an online account through MYACCOUNT where you can see usage trends and balances for the previous 12-months. If you would like more information, or are interested in budget billing, please call our office at (715) 246-4167.