By Katie Wagner, Staff Writer
MONTGOMERY — Property owners and residents who rely on the township for sewage treatment and use less water this year are likely to see lower sewer service bills next year thanks to the township’s new formula for calculating this annual fee that was presented during two informational sessions Wednesday.
The new sewage treatment billing plan replaces the old system of a flat fee per household and other set costs for specific kinds of non-residential units.
An ordinance authorizing the change that will affect more than half of Montgomery households was adopted at a Sept. 20 Township Committee meeting.
A resolution that makes it possible for residents who use well rather than public water to also be charged for sewage treatment based on water usage was passed during the Feb. 7 meeting.
Under the ordinance residents and property owners’ sewage treatment bills will be based on the sum of their water usage included in their four quarterly water bills or the amounts included in their two lowest water bills from the previous year multiplied by two, whichever total is less, times the township’s sewer rate for the year.
The final step to achieving the fee on each resident’s sewage treatment bill will be to add the $100 base fee per unit, which pays for costs of billing, administration and debt service.
The township decided to exclude the resident and property owners’ water bill measurements from quarters of their highest water usage to prevent them from having to pay for irrigating lawns and filling pools, since this water does not end up being treated by the township’s sewer system.
Although the change will not go into effect until January, the amount of water property owners and residents with public sewer service use this year will determine exactly how much they pay when the new billing formula is applied.
”A request for using this method of billing originally came from some residents from smaller households, such as senior citizens and singles who don’t use a lot of the services provided by the sewer authority,” said Mayor Cecilia Birge. “We have been talking about this for a while, so over the years we looked at the issue again and again.
”We looked at different options, such as basing fees on the number of bedrooms,” she said. “We also looked at the differences between number of kids and in the end the current proposal seems to be the fairest proposal.”
The failure of Elizabethtown Water — the company that formally provided public water to Montgomery— to produce accurate data from resident and property owners’ water usage had been one of the obstacles to getting a new sewage treatment billing plan created. She added that the recent ownership change to NJ American Water helped make billing property owners and residents based on their water usage possible.
The resolution that passed Feb. 7 would make it possible for residents with well water to be billed by water usage if they purchased a special water meter. The township would then base these households’ bills on meter readings from the two quarters of the year preceding the sewage treatment bill that they used the least amounts of water. If these households decided not to purchase the meters, their sewage treatment bills would be based on the township’s average residential bill. Those interested in purchasing these special meters, with costs ranging from $100 to $180 per meter should contact the Montgomery Engineering Department. Installing these meters would also be the responsibility of the residents.
Those residents who have septic systems or treat their sewage in some way other than through the township’s sewage treatment systems would not be affected by the ordinance.
