MANITOWANING—During the last meeting of Assiginack council, councillors learned that municipalities are not immune to the plight of irregular Hydro One billing.
During the accounts for payment portion of the meeting, councillors inquired about the more than $17,000 payment to Hydro One Networks dated April 7. Clerk Alton Hobbs explained that the municipality received six months of bills in one day for some of its accounts and that Assiginack treasurer Deb MacDonald had written a letter to the Ontario Ombudsman in complaint.
Ms. MacDonald told The Expositor that the lack of bills for the Sunsite Estates water treatment plant and the Manitowaning arena have been of major concern for the municipality, noting that the billing for all of its 16 accounts has been erratic since the installation of smart meters.
“We got a big pile of bills two weeks ago,” the treasurer said, adding that the municipality had still not received anything for the arena.
This headache with the hydro bills also caused Ms. MacDonald to come up with estimates when it came to budget deliberations.
In her letter to the Ombudsman, Ms. MacDoanld states, “I am writing in regards to two hydro accounts for the Township of Assiginack. In both cases, we have not received bills since last year. I am attaching copies of the last bills received for both properties.”
“The last bill (for Sunsite Estates) was received dated October 23, 2013 and has been paid and covers electricity used up to September 25, 2013,” the letter states. “I have made calls to Hydro One to obtain balance updates, etc., and my last call today was met with an obvious scripted response, that due to the new billing system some accounts have bills pending and they basically can give us no kind of timeline on when we can finally expect to receive a bill.”
“The last billing received (for the arena) and paid on this account was dated September 6, 2013 and covers electricity estimated only to August 13, 2013,” the treasurer’s letter of complaint continues. “I have made the same calls to Hydro One as above, and have supplied meter readings as well, on a couple of different occasions. This account has not had an actual meter reading in well over a year and since it is our ice plant, we can only imagine what our bill is going to be when it is finally received. I inquired once again today, made the same phone call as before, regarding when we can expect a bill, and I was met with the same scripted response with no idea of when we can expect a bill.”
“We are a small municipality, working with limited funds, and it makes it very difficult to budget properly when we cannot rely on the accuracy of the bills we are receiving, especially in the two cases above, as they are both high consumption accounts,” Ms. MacDonald’s letter to the Ontario Ombudsman concludes.
