Water consumption

[BC Dave]

I don't usually pay much attention to our City of Penticton utility bills, but in taking a quick look at the latest bill I noticed a monthly water consumption charge, in addition to the basic water charge. I thought we were billed only twice a year for actual consumption. The amount of about $12 for 33 days of water consumption certainly isn't much to sweat about, but Is this monthly water use bill something new or just something I've not noticed before now?

[JagXKR]

The January Newsletter, included with your bill, announced the changes. This newsletter is included in the mailed and emailed bills. Also included in that newsletter was the announcement of a new curbside collection program.

[rustled]

The change was also announced on last month's bill:

Please note - change in monthly water billing - metered customers will be billed for monthly consumption starting on the bills that will be mailed out in February. Un-metered customers have a consumption component built into their monthly charge.

But neither the bill nor the accompanying newsletter mentioned there would be a statistically significant jump in the basic charge (from 19.77 to 23.19).

By my calculations, the rate for water consumed has also gone up (to 0.0186 from 0.0167). IMO, the rate charged for consumption should be provided on the bill, but it isn't. (Not for electricity, either.) Like jump in the cost of basic, this is quite a leap if you look at past consumption rate hikes.

And the figures they've used for my "metered" consumption all look suspiciously like estimates. Are yours neatly rounded, too?