City questions HMU regarding sewer money

    HARLAN -- The City of Harlan has questions for Harlan Municipal Utilities regarding money transfers to the city for sewer billing.
    It’s not that HMU isn’t transferring all income received, it’s the overall amount.
    When the city updated their sewer system several years ago, their engineers did a revenue estimate, but those estimated dollars are not fully materializing, thus the questions.
    The Utilities, who process the city’s invoices for sewer based on water used, says the city’s estimates were flawed.
    It appears the engineers, in making their estimates, used total gallons of water billed and applied the sewer fee schedules to those totals.   HMU says not all the water billed goes through the sewers and thus doesn’t get a sewer invoice: for example, Essentia uses thousands of gallons, but is not charged a sewer fee applicable to those gallons.  Private pool fills are another possible exception.
    Secondly, HMU says, there is a question on dollars allocated from partial Utility bill payments, especially those who are behind and delinquent. Money might come in that doesn’t cover the total bill and the question arises as to which utility (or sewer fees) should those dollars be applied, or in what proportion.
 

 
 

 

Harlan Newspapers

1114 7th Street
P.O. Box 721
Harlan, IA 51537-0721

(800) 909-6397
news2@harlanonline.com

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