Berwyn water bill scofflaws to be left high and dry under new city policy

BERWYN – Berwyn water customers who don’t pay their bills may find themselves running high and dry in an effort to bring them up to date on payments and avoid having regular-paying customers footing the bill.

The Berwyn City Council unanimously adopted a policy that now outlines the process leading up to shutting off the water service to a delinquent customer.

Under the policy, residents with outstanding water bills will receive a letter in the mail informing them of being late in their payment. If the bill is not paid within 30 days of the letter, a physical notice will be placed at the residence and the water will be subject to having service cut.

Residential water bills go out on a quarterly basis while commercial customers are billed monthly because they are higher users, according to the city.

The exact number of customers who are late in paying is hard to pin down because it is constantly changing, Assistant City Administrator Evan Summers said.

“There’s some people who will let their bills pile up and then pay them in one fell swoop at the end of the year,” Summers said.

Meanwhile, the city of Berwyn has a bill at the end of each month for the water that is purchased from the city of Chicago that needs to be paid.

“Say we get a $100,000 bill from Chicago that has to be paid at the end of the month. If we only get $90,000 that month from our water bills, then the taxpayers pay that remainder out of the General Fund,” Summers said.

To date, that amount is approaching $1 million, according to Summers.

“We’ve given them every opportunity available,”Summers said. “But we have a fiduciary responsibility to the people of Berwyn that we can’t keep giving those with delinquent bills more water.”

Summers said some residents have not paid their water bills in a considerable amount of time and beginning this month, those customers will have their water shut off. Some 30 letters have been sent out notifying people their water service is going to be cut and that has prompted several to come in and pay their bills.

“The goal of the program is not to turn off water but rather to simply bring the water accounts current,” Summers said.

Berwyn Finance Director Rasheed Jones said delinquent customers should not be surprised at the prospect of having their water turned off because they have been notified several times their accounts remain unpaid.

Residents who believe their water bill is unusually high because of a water leak can have the city analyze their system by a trained technician free of charge. To set up an analysis, call 708-788-2660 and ask to speak to a representative of the Berwyn Water Department.