Veneta Utilities Authority approves one free annual water read; $25 fee for additional requests

The Veneta Utilities Authority on June 17 approved a policy allowing each customer one free annual water read or data pull; additional requests will be charged a $25 service fee, the authority's members said.

The measure, recommended by the Finance and General Government Committee, was prompted by repeated one-off data requests that staff said consume substantial time and manpower. The authority voted to approve the policy after a motion from Lucas and a second by Young; members voiced no opposition.

Committee chair Wofford said repeated data pulls require field staff to run reports on site and divert labor from other projects. A staff member explained that the authority’s technology crew must go into the field, run the report and that recurring requests “take a lot of manpower and time away.” She and other staff said the fee would be credited back to the customer's account if a leak is detected during a read.

The authority clarified that an in-house monitoring process flags unusually high usage; staff will initiate a read in those cases and the fee will not apply. The policy sets the operational expectation that one read per customer per year is free; any additional reads will incur the $25 fee unless the read detects a leak and the charge is reversed.

The policy was adopted without further amendment. The authority did not specify an implementation date or how the charge will appear on customer bills during the meeting.