CARROT RIVER — About one-third of Carrot River residents have received an incorrect utility bill, with an extra $66 added.
A simple way to find the error is to look at the notice. If the bill has a "balance 06-Dec-2019" you likely were mistakenly pre-billed $66.
Kevin Trew, Carrot River’s administrator, said the error is not affecting the customers’ accounts, just the printed balance invoices.
“The system decided to pre-bill December’s bill,” Trew said.
“We are currently addressing that issue and it won’t happen again.”
The error appears to have occurred on some invoices on one route out of three different town routes, resulting in about a third of the town being impacted. It has since been reported a number of times to the town office leading to them discovering the error.
Trew said that should a customer pay the additional $66, it will go in as credit for next month’s bill.
“Nobody’s losing money,” he said, adding that he understands Christmas can be a financially difficult time for families.
“We aren’t really in a habit of refunding people because they will usually have the bill next month. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, but if somebody feels they overpaid and that they’ve felt the $66 they don’t want to have paid ahead — they can certainly give me a call and we can have a conversation with them about it and we could figure out how to accommodate them.”
Trew said that if anyone has any questions of concerns they can contact the town at 306-768-2515.
The Town of Carrot River does not charge interest on outstanding utility balances and expect the December notice that will be issued in early January to be correct.
