Mamou to charge $20 fee for late bills

Mamou utility customers who are late paying their bills will have to pay a higher price starting in March.
Glenn Breaux, the town hall’s office manager, said the new policy will add a $20 service fee to water bills that are not paid for two months. In addition, if service is cut, customers will have to pay an existing $20 reconnection fee, as well as the amount past due on the account, before service is restored.
Breaux said bills are sent out the first of each month and are due upon receipt. The town has been applying a penalty if bills aren’t paid by the 15th of the month that is 10 percent of the amount of the bill.
A computer generates a list of customers who are two months behind at the end of the 19th day of the month, or the next business day if the 19th falls on a weekend. The new $20 service fee will be applied to those customers, and a utility employee will be given a list of those customers and instructed to cut their service. Customers who pay their delinquent bills, including the service fee and 10 percent penalty, will have to wait until the next day to have service restored.
Breaux said the town’s utility employees have to be reassigned from their normal duties to disconnect and reconnect service, and sometimes have to be paid overtime to complete the extra work.
Also, the town does not reconnect service after normal working hours, Breaux said. He said people who have had their utility service disconnected have complained to Mamou police and demanded service be restored after hours. Others come to city hall and argue about their bills, or insist they never got a bill, Breaux said.
Breaux said 60 to 70 people are typically late paying their utility bills -- often the same ones regularly delinquent --- and the new service fee is intended to lower that amount.
The town charges a flat rate of $37 per month, $17 for water and $20 for sewer, inside the town. Water service outside of town is $28 per month.