YORKVILLE – Nearly 500 utility bill account holders were delinquent by more than 30 days as of last month amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Yorkville city documents.

According to city documents obtained by Record Newspapers, there were late notices sent to 498 Yorkville utility bill account holders who were delinquent by more than 30 days as of Aug. 31 for the bill cycle ending June 30. That accounts for a total of $176,358.95 in utility bill payments owed to the city, per the documents.

In comparison, the total utility penalties issued for the city's utility billing cycle ending Feb. 29 was 88, which cost the city $84,834.58, according to the documents.

Rob Fredrickson, finance director for the United City of Yorkville, said the city did not shut off any utilities for residents during the pandemic and officials did not collect penalties for the June 30 utility bill, which was due Aug. 5. However, if the city did issue those penalties for that billing cycle, that would have applied to the 498 utility bill accounts and would have amounted to $17,635.90 in penalties.

However, Fredrickson said, he hasn't really seen a huge variation in the number of late payments, despite the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. He said he likes to look at total direct deposit payments to monitor that situation — which amounts to about $250,000 per billing cycle, according to city documents – and that number has stayed pretty consistent since the pandemic really hit the area.

“I don’t think the penalties are necessarily out of the ordinary, at least at this point,” Fredrickson said.

When asked whether Fredrickson personally feels that the number of delinquent utility bill payments is reflective of the economic state of a municipality, he said he hasn't heard of any cities having dire consequences – or cities really having a hard time collecting utility bill payments altogether – during any collective economic hardships.

“That certainly hasn’t been the case in Yorkville, for what it’s worth,” Fredrickson said.