I got my water bill this week. It's typical of all my water bills.
I do bathe. I drink water, too. And use it for cooking. And washing my clothes. And dishes. And of course, there's that other bathroom fixture. I don't use sprinklers, but BPers who do usually get irrigation water from a well, which is dug only for that purpose. I'm happy to report I don't have any leaks.
According to CNM, who provides our water, and bills us for it, I used four units, which is 4000 gallons, this past quarter. However they decide how much water should cost, my charge for residential consumption was $7.56. That seems to me very little to pay for however much water I used, which was as much as I wanted to use, in three months. But my bill wasn't for $7.56. It wasn't even close to that.
The big additional fee was from CNM, and it was what they call a "base charge" for their having supplied 3/4" pipes. Unfortunately, they don't seem to think they have a meaningful responsibility to maintain those pipes. They just supplied them, however many decades ago that was. And they charge $37.53 per quarter for the fact that those pipes are here. That's almost exactly five times the amount they charged me for the water.
The next surcharge (CNM calls it a surcharge), which was the next highest add-on/pocket-picking, was $11.27. Their name for this surcharge is the "Outside [CNM] Water and/or Sewer [nope, not sewer; very few of us are on public sewage] Surcharge." So they sting us badly for the fact that they installed water supply pipes decades ago, and don't service them, unless they absolutely have to, and they sting us somewhat more gently for the fact that we're not actually part of CNM.
Then, there's the VBP Utility Tax. That was $4.51 this quarter. I have no complaint about this tax. I wouldn't care if it was more. CNM collects it, and gives it (possibly minus a small administrative fee for collecting it) back to us. It's one of several utility taxes we have various providers of various things charge us, so they can give it back to us. Because we (VBP) have very limited ways of getting revenue to do things (a number of which we can't afford to do), and we rely on our very own selves. The big check we write ourselves is for ad valorem property taxes, but there are several non ad valorem taxes we also pay, like this one for water. You'll find an extra VBP tax like this on your electric bill, your phone bills, and your cable bills.
Finally, Dade County charges us something they call a "Service Fee." On my quarterly bill, this amount was $3.38. Just over a buck a month. Next to nothing. Although... Since we get our water from CNM, which would attend to the pipes, if they felt like it, it's not exactly clear what "service" the county provides. Not that it matters, because it's such a small amount, but I'd rather they just call it a county tax. You know, just because.
It's a very funky system, this business of charging for water. And as much less than it is more or less anywhere else in the country (much), it's still worth at least a passing thought as to what it's about, apart from the obvious: people/agencies/municipalities (very much mostly CNM) taking other people's money. I know they need it. So do we. But still...
I used someone's idea of $7.56 worth of water in three months, and it cost me $64.25 to get it. I paid between eight and nine times what the water cost. I think I should use more water.
Eddie and I have been discussing this very topic this very week! We paid substantially the last two quarters so called our plumber who found no leaks. But we are somehow consuming 7x your usage. And as grand as our garden is in our own minds, we aren’t providing H2O for our VBP version of the Fountains at the Bellagio. It’s is head scratching and we are wondering if our meter isn’t malfunctioning. Thanks for covering this topic. Still more questions than answers.
ReplyDeleteRafa,
DeleteI assume the base charge and the surcharge are the same for everyone. Is that what you see? I'm also assuming that the taxes depend on the amount of the bill, and the amount of the bill depends on the actual usage. Yes? So you used 28 units (28,000 gallons) in the past quarter? Yikes! So your usage cost about $55, plus the $48.75 in CNM fees, plus the taxes. Somewhere around $125-$130?
Even if you were loading a fountain with water, it would be the same water most of the time. It just cycles around. Do you water your yard? Is it possible you don't have a well, and your sprinkler system uses water for which you pay? Either that or a significant leak is all I can think of to account for a seven times different water usage. That's pretty wild.
CNM has been most unhelpful to us for a long time. We tried to get them to commit to serving us properly, but neither they nor we can find any contract any of us signed who knows when. We had discussed switching to county water, instead of CNM water, but we never made any inroads, and I suspect there would be a fairly substantial fee to run pipes to the county, and disconnect from CNM. I don't know where the nearest county main is. It's frustrated a few of our Commissions and a couple of our lawyers.
Fred
PS: There are parts of the country where water bills are $100 a month. What did you pay in the Dallas area?
DeleteWell just received notice from NM that they are raising water by 4% Feb 2021 so hurry up and bathe all you want now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I got that today, too. I'm cooking another post about it.
DeleteJust to get you up to speed on this particular issue, apparently, no one can find a contract between them and us. So they don't do anything to maintain the pipes for which they charge us the exorbitant quarterly fee. If you want to try again, now with yet another Village lawyer, please feel free. John Hearn couldn't figure out what to do with this mess, and neither could John Herin. And I don't get a good feeling about Ed Dion. But maybe he needs to be turned loose on this. The chronic complaints, about which CNM is not at all interested, are low pressure and intermittently stained or discolored water. Some of those pipes must be gradually clogging, but we can't get CNM to do anything about it. And the infuriating thing about it is that not only do they charge us this high fee for the fact that the pipes are there, but they charge us an additional premium/"surcharge" because we're not part of the municipality of CNM. You'd think they have extra reason to service us, but they act like they have no reason to service us. And we can't even show them their responsibility, because no one can find a copy of a decades-old contract. So they just pretend they don't have a responsibility, even though they charge us extra. For what?
I spoke with NM water supervisor in the field at the site of a repair and he mentioned that there was a plan in the books to replace all of the water lines. He wasn’t optimistic that the funding for that would happen soon, but finding that plan might be a place to start another discussion. Might be found in a five or ten year capital improvement budget.
ReplyDeleteIn whose books?
DeleteRight, not optimistic about funding, although raising rates on us. And charging us an exorbitant and apparently indefinite fee for the fact that those pipes are here.
I'm sure CNM is completely unmotivated to find old contracts and plans. Some years ago, our then clerk, Ann Harper, felt overwhelmed with boxes of who knows what papers one day, and she discarded them. No one knows what was in those boxes. VBP residents have been unable to prove that remote improvements were done with permits, and we can't find the CNM water-related contract. Presumably, that's the kind of stuff that no longer clogs Village Hall.
I think the clerk was Gwen Montieth.
ReplyDeleteAs to your first question, North Miami’s. It would be a public record and these budgets often serve as a guide and indeed are often pushed forward if funding or enough funding isn’t available.
Although I don't like the outside service fee either, it would be reasonable if in some way the residents of North Miami provide support fort heirs after infrastructure through their ad valorem taxes. It would be nice to know what we might be eligible for in the future, as to improvements, through the payment of these fees.
I think the clerk was Gwen Montieth.
ReplyDeleteAs to your first question, North Miami’s. It would be a public record and these budgets often serve as a guide and indeed are often pushed forward if funding or enough funding isn’t available.
Although I don't like the outside service fee either, it would be reasonable if in some way the residents of North Miami provide support fort heirs after infrastructure through their ad valorem taxes. It would be nice to know what we might be eligible for in the future, as to improvements, through the payment of these fees.