THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701010293
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN WEINTRAUB, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 54 lines
Water customers will soon recoup about half the losses for overpayments made by customers from 1993 to 1995.
Every residential water customer in Virginia Beach will get a $32.82 credit in their next bill. Commercial customers will get back as much as $5,700.
Customers overpaid because rates had been estimated two years in advance and Beach water costs turned out to be $11 million less than expected, Clarence O. Warnstaff, Virginia Beach director of public utilities, said Tuesday.
Norfolk, which provides water to the Beach, is returning the overpayment, as provided by the contract between the two cities. Half the money will be returned to customers; the other half will be used for water system construction projects to help reduce the city's debt and therefore taxpayers' future costs.
Refunds are based on the size of a customer's water meter: Homeowners will all receive $32.82 because they all have the same size water meter. Businesses will receive credits based on the size of their meter.
Warnstaff said current customers, rather than those on the system in 1993-95, will receive the credit because the city does not have the computer capacity to track customers who may have moved.
The city overestimated its water costs, Warnstaff said, because it didn't expect interest rates to fall and had planned to make more progress on the Lake Gaston pipeline than it did.
When interest rates fell, the city's cost of borrowing money fell with it, saving several million on pipeline-related construction, Warnstaff said. And because of continuing legal problems with the project, Virginia Beach delayed giving Norfolk the go-ahead to expand the plant that will treat Gaston water.
Because construction has now started, Warnstaff said he didn't expect the cost projections to be as far off for the 1995-97 fiscal years as they had been for the two previous years.
``I suspect if there is a credit (in the future),'' Warnstaff said, ``it's not going to be anything of this magnitude.''
The city began sending out the credits in late December and will continue until February, when the current meter-reading and billing cycle is complete, he said.
The money will only be available through a credit, not cash or check.
This winter's bill may be the last Beach residents pay that includes charges for just water and sanitary sewer use. Beginning in the first half of this year, Beach residents will receive a combined bill for water, sanitary sewer service, stormwater management and wastewater treatment by the Hampton Roads Sanitation District.
That new billing system had been planned for late last year but was delayed by computer glitches, Warnstaff said. It will be tested in January and could be used citywide by March, he said.