Uncollectable water and sewer accounts will no longer be on the books in the Town of Irricana.
Twenty accounts dating back as far as 2000 and amounting to a total of $4,368.21 were written off by the Town during the council meeting on Feb. 4 because they were deemed uncollectable.
According to a request for decision in the council agenda, that write-offs were not originally budgeted for this year, but there is enough money available in the budget to take them on in 2013. The money will come from unused administration funds.
Irricana CAO Alvin Melton explained that in the past, renters had their names on utility accounts, rather than the owners.
If those renters left town suddenly without leaving a forwarding address, it became difficult for the Town to collect on those unpaid bills.
“We’ll do our best to collect it as a town,” said Melton after the council meeting. “If we can’t find the person, track them down, we’ll send that to a collection agency, the collection agency will do whatever they have to do to collect … after a number of years of inactivity, if they can’t find that person, that’s when you deem the account uncollectable. We’ve tried, the collection agency has tried, and to simply get it off the books as a bad account, council makes the motion to call it a bad account.”
The Town has now changed that policy in order to prevent accounts from becoming uncollectable.
“Water accounts are no longer in renter’s names, water accounts are in the name of the property owner and a new policy that was put in place last summer is all utility accounts must be collected within several months or else the water is shut off and that account needs to be paid up immediately before the water gets put back on,” said Melton. “That has put bad accounts down to zero, there are no outstanding accounts. So basically those two processes have really changed those bad accounts.”
Mayor Lisa Constantini added that previously the town had written off a certain amount – typically $1,000 – every year from bad accounts, but the council agenda states that wiping them all off the books now gives the Town a “clearer picture” of its financial position.
