Monday, February 13th it was announced at the City Council meeting that the City of Weiser will be returning to the original shut off policy before COVID. New City Clerk, Natasha McDaniel, stated “We are not doing anything different. We are just going back to where we were before COVID. Before COVID the policy was that your bill would be due either on the first or fifteenth. Five days later you would be disconnected. There were fees involved with that.”
During COVID the City of Weiser decided to stop doing shut offs. As the situation improved the City moved into a modified policy that would only do shut offs if residents were behind for multiple months. With that modified policy the City made phone calls to warn customers that they were going to be shut off before doing so. They will no longer be doing this.
With the return to the original policy McDaniel reminded the board and community of the resources that are out there stating, “There’s anywhere from five to seven programs available at any given time. That anybody, if they are having trouble paying or having a hard time, can go out and get assistance.” McDaniel mentioned a few of those agencies and shared that the City would be willing to send them in the right direction if customers need assistance finding those resources.
The City plans to send bills out earlier to give customers more time to plan and budget for their bill. This would also give customers more time to get help if they are needing it. With the City’s new online paying program, Invoice Cloud, custamers will be able to receive reminders of their bill due dates and amounts through emails or text messages. This online payment also gives customers more ways to pay their bill such as, bill pay, auto pay and schedule pay. “We are really trying to broaden the way our customers can pay the bill and give them more time, but we have found we need to get back to what our policy and our ordinance states.”
