Water in St. Cloud. It’s had issues, residents say.
If it wasn’t the color and quality concerns that started in 2019, it’s been costs and billing.
Toho Water Authority, which took over servicing the city’s water utility in October 2022, has been aware of a surge in billing concerns from St. Cloud customers, and CEO Todd Swingle addressed issues at the Feb. 13 City Council meeting.
“We started to become aware of these [concerns] in December, and shortly thereafter, in January, launched several responses,” Swingle said.
A dedicated web page (www. tohowater.com/bill-questions) and a dedicated email address (waterbillquestions@tohowater.com) for customers to request an individual review have been created. Toho is also evaluating their billing and metering systems to make sure they don’t have issues, he said.
Swingle said various factors contribute to increased water bills, including rate increases, customer usage, and equipment failure.
“There was a rate change that went into effect in the first part of October,” he said. “Our wastewater and irrigation rates increased by 5 percent. Our reclaimed rate increased by about 12.6 percent. Additionally, on Toho’s bill are several City items, including solid waste and stormwater fees. Those increased by about 8.2 percent, and there may be some locations where those fees are brand new. If a property was just annexed in October, historically that solid waste bill would have been on their County tax bill, and it’s now showing up on our Toho bill because as a City service, that’s where it’s billed instead of on the tax bill.”
Increased customer usage— especially irrigation—is often a major driver of cost, Swingle said.
“We see that variability in usage, including high irrigation, is one of the significant sources of bill changes. There can be unusual usage, whether it’s more people in the home for the holidays, or a pool fill. But we do offer bill adjustments for certain planned and unplanned events,” he said. “So we absolutely want people to call us if they see something, or send an email to that bill inquiry, because there can be things that, like a pool fill, there could be something. It could be a leak….and we do provide credits for those.”
Swingle said they have identified about 6,500 of the electronic devices that send meter readings to the Toho offices which need to be repaired or replaced. When those devices fail, he said, an estimated usage based on the customer’s prior 12 months is used for billing purposes.
He also noted that customers on autopay have a default $300 for credit cards. When a bill exceeds that limit, that autopay doesn’t process.
“If no payment is made, that next bill will reflect the past-due amount, and so often, people may see a very high bill, and it’s really two months because that past payment didn’t process,” Swingle said. “We are in the process of working with the payment vendor to increase that limit to $1,000.”
Council member Ken Gilbert said he was one of the customers that had a credit card on file, and the bill was over the credit card on file, so it did not take payment “And a month later, we got a late charge and a notice to shut off our water,” Gilbert said. “We have plenty of folks that are in our house that live there, and I appreciate … that you decided to raise that limit.”
All the Council members said they have received phone calls and emails from residents concerned about their water bills.
“I believe that Toho is committed to working with the residents to get their issues resolved,” Mayor Chris Robertson said.
