Water service cutoffs just 'routine business'

Nearly 300 customers of the Jackson County Water and Sewerage Authority got bitter reminders this week that county water isn’t free.
They found their water cut off, the result of failing to pay their bills.

“They made a big deal out of it, for whatever reason,” said Klerk. “There’s nothing new about the process. We do this every month. We didn’t cut anybody off who owed less than $75, but if it got to the point where the deposit didn’t cover what they owed, we cut them off.”

The only difference this week was that two month’s worth of cutoffs were performed. Last month, the authority was in the midst of a software conversion, so no one was cut off, Klerk explained.

“We got about the same amount (of cutoffs) we always have,” he said. “I don’t know why this month wound up in the newspaper. We do it all the time. It’s just the course of doing business. We didn’t change any policies.”

The effort attempted to collect some $55,000 of the $141,000 in unpaid bills that were 10 or more days beyond the past-due date, according to Klerk.

“We don’t go after the small amounts. We wait and try to give people a break,” he said.