Water customers threaten to pay their bill in pennies after Raleigh discovers error

Angela Humphries plans to pay her water bill with pennies and single dollar bills. She might not be the only one.

Hundreds of Wake County residents are still pushing back after their water bills have more than doubled. The city of Raleigh says the increase is due to erroneous billing for more than a decade that was recently discovered.

Humphries and a handful of other affected residents aired their grievances to the Raleigh City Council on Tuesday, asking for all water customers to pay the same rate regardless of whether they live inside or outside city limits.

"We need immediate relief from you for rate reform," Humphries said. "I need you to reinstate my former sewer rates without delay, until I have political representation to help negotiate new policies or new laws."

Raleigh charged 635 Wake County residents lower, in-town water rates when they should have been paying higher out-of-town rates. Most of the people affected by the error live in the Willow Deer and Jones Dairy Farm subdivisions near Wake Forest. A smaller number of people were being charged double when they should have been paying the lower rate.

The error, which was caught late last year during a city audit, cost Raleigh nearly $2 million in lost revenue over the years. The city isn't asking the customers for back pay.

The average water customer who lives within the city pays $52.46 per month, while customers who live outside municipal limits pay an average of $99.86 per month.

Jim Burke told the City Council on Tuesday that despite his family's second lowest water consumption month, his bill was $175.

"The folks in Jones Dairy and Willow Deer are upset and (I) certainly understand why," said Robert Massengill, the city's public utilities administrator. "We have been billing them at half the rate for at least 10 years, but in fairness to all the other customers who are in their same situation, we have to bill them the same rate as the other outside-city-limits customers."

The residents have taken to social media, using the hashtag #WakeCountyWaterWars, and they reached out to county and state officials for help. N.C. Rep. Chris Malone, who represents a portion of Wake County, tweeted, "I sure hope the @RaleighGov sees what their unequal treatment of some citizens is looking like."

The council did not action or address the comments Tuesday.

"I understand they are frustrated but I think there are a lot of people frustrated who have been paying the double rates that feel like, 'We were paying our fair share, so should you,'" Mayor Nancy McFarlane said. "It's difficult and I understand people are upset by it."

This story was originally published April 5, 2018 at 10:00 AM with the headline "Water customers threaten to pay their bill in pennies after Raleigh discovers error."