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The $50 fee attached last week to each property owner’s utility bill in order to make up a June 2015 billing shortfall is temporarily suspended, Asbury Park officials announced Thursday afternoon.

Residents who have paid the $50 bill will receive a credit to their account, according to a news release.

The added $50 billing came in response to the annual municipal audit findings.

“Last fiscal year, the previous tax collector did not upload the month of June in that quarter’s sewer billing,” City Manager Michael Capabianco [at right] said via written statement. “That mistake was found by the new tax collector and was explicitly mentioned to the City Auditor to sample that quarter during the annual audit to ensure the new tax collector was correct in his finding that June’s month had been omitted, in order to compare against the 2015 amount. According to the Auditor’s findings, it was omitted and cost the City approximately $200,000.”

The shortfall, initially divided by the 4,000 sewer paying properties for a charge of $50 per sewer account, will be collected in a more equitable way, officials said.

“Myself, the City Council and Administration have heard the concerns of the ratepayers and will adjust how the bill is going to be calculated,” Mayor John Moor said.

The question of how to make up the deficit was not a quick, automatic, or easy process, Capabianco said.

“The 2015 fiscal year is closed out in our financial software, so we can’t simply reissue a bill and apply it to prior year’s budget,” he said. “Furthering that issue, the water usage data that is used to create the sewer bill had been corrupted.”

Having obtained new data from the water company, the municipality will solicit proposals from auditing firms in order to better determine each ratepayer’s uncharged bill.

“The data set has numerous parameters, such as usage credits, closed account dates, and new account information that we just don’t have the expertise to handle,” Capabianco said.

From the Audit document: Sewer billings were inaccurate.
Cause and effect: Several factors contributed to the inaccuracy of the sewer billings. The more material of those include the omission of one month’s water consumption from the sewer billing computation and the incorrect rates being billed for various meter sizes. The effect is that sewer revenues were diminished.
Views of Responsible Officials and Planned Corrective Actions: City management concurs with the finding. The City will correct its records and bill for the one month’s water consumption that was omitted.
Recommendation: It is recommended that sewer billing be computed accurately.

In addition to a new sewer bill, the Fourth Quarter taxes will be billed separately, once a tax rate is finalized by the State, officials said. This means two bills will be received in the mail, and both must be paid.

For more information, click here.

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