Late Charges Big Problem

The City will now lose $200,000 per year because of the recent Supreme court case Garland v. Consumers’ Gas Co. Since, many municipalities base their budgets on these late charges, we all will be paying a bit more now at tax time, because some decided not to pay their bills on time and complain about having to pay a late charge.

Late charges are to encourage people to pay their bills on time, and like a business, a municipality cannot have large receivables in order to run effectively and efficiently. These costs as well as extraordinary collection costs should be borne by customers who cause them to be incurred and not the tax payers. I sure hope this decision can be appealed and overturned.

JDM