$20.00 Fee

The $20.00 per month fee that is going to be voted on by the Parish is interesting for a few reasons. One is that the Parish President seems to feel the amount needed may be even higher, and that could well be accurate. Most communities do pay a much higher amount than we do for sanitation and Fire. Also, it seems that the majority of water meters in the Parish do NOT get read, instead the home is sent a flat bill of $16.24 per month. At the last E F C ( Executive Finance Committee ) meeting Wayne Landry asked the Administration why the Parish was not reading all the meters and sending out accurate bills. ( I know in my case my pre-K water bill was usually about $30.00 month ). It seems the Parish is slowly replacing old meters with new ones that can be read by a water dept vehicle just driving down the street. No need to get out and actually look at the dials. The Administration did not want to hire people to read meters only to lay them off in future years as the new meters are installed. Wayne Landry suggested that the loss in revenue in the meantime was a very large amount of money, and maybe the Parish should hire a few meter readers and tell them up front that the job will only last a few years. Just getting that $15 - 20 from all the houses paying the flat rate water bill would be a dramatic amount, and if some homes are paying the "real " water bill amount ( getting the meter read ), then it seems everyone else should too. Anyway,the Poll question for the next few days will be simple..........$20.00 / month fee.......yes or no.