Tauranga residents have reported getting big water bills recently. Photo / Getty Images
Tauranga residents have reported getting big water bills recently. Photo / Getty Images
Mugshots: Jim Taylor, Tauranga City Council transactional services manager. Photo / File A_170216gn06bop.JPG Tauranga Budget Advisory Service manager Shirley McCombe. Photo / File A_240519gn12bop.JPG
By Samantha Motion
Flow-on effects from the level 4 lockdown been blamed for a shock in the mailbox for some Tauranga residents.
Residents have been reporting receivingbig water bills in recent weeks - well over their usual amounts - with budget advisors also seeing a trend in "very high water bills".
Tauranga City Council has put the big bills down a combination of higher water use during lockdown, a shortfall from previous under-estimated bills catching up with people, and a longer billing period.
And billing data has shown the average bill for the start of the current cycle is up nearly 50 per cent on last year to more than $100 for one quarter.
The council bills residents for water use quarterly, usually based on a physical reading of their water meter.
Jim Taylor, the council's transactional services manager, said the council could not send out meter readers during the lockdown earlier this year.
Jim Taylor, Tauranga City Council transactional services manager. Photo / File
As a result, some water bills were estimated rather than read during a period including the end of March and in April and May.
The next billing cycle started in July and meter readings were done in areas that were estimated last time.
This revealed many estimates had been "conservative" and some people had been billed for less than they used in the previous quarter.
This resulted in "some higher bills than customers may have expected", Taylor said.
Compounding the issue, water use shot up during the lockdown and months that followed.
New Zealand was in level 4 lockdown between March 26 and April 27, with most of the population spending much more time at home than usual. Level 3 lasted until May 13, and level 2 until June 8.
The council found average water use increased by nearly half over that period, compared to the previous year.
Water use shot up during lockdown. Photo / Getty Images
"Our data shows that from April to June 2019, average daily usage was 440 litres. From April to June 2020 that increased by nearly 50 per cent, to 640 litres," Taylor said.
He said some longer billing periods this year also had an impact. The council held off running water rates bills for a couple of weeks as the council signed off its 2020/21 Annual Plan - and set the rates - later than usual.
The fee for water increased from $2.14 per cubic metre, to $2.23 per cubic metre when the new plan came into effect, but Taylor said that would have had little impact as most of the usage on recent invoices would have been charged at the old rate.
To quantify the actual dollar impact on bills of these trends, Taylor compared bills from the July to September quarter last year, with the first five weeks of the same cycle this year.
He said the average bill went from $77.59 last year to $114.10 this year - a 47 per cent increase.
Taylor said the council would learn from the experience.
"If we need to run estimates bills again in the future we will adapt the estimation methodology," he said.
The council encouraged anyone struggling to pay their bill to get in touch.
Tauranga Budget Advisory Services manager Shirley McCombe said her team had seen "several clients with very high water rates".
She said a lot of clients were renting and sometimes the water rates are included in the rent.
It was a bad time of year for an unexpectedly big bill for many, she said.
