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Pender County Utilities moves to post-professional-mail-services billing template; customers to receive bills this week
Summary
After a private billing vendor closed, county utilities staff said June 2 they exported customer billing data into the county’s Tyler Munis system and will mail bills immediately; staff also said online self-service and future email billing options are being developed and encouraged customers to sign up for online accounts.
Pender County Utilities staff told commissioners June 2 that county personnel had moved quickly to restore utility billing after the county’s third-party printer closed and left 166 customers without mailed bills.
Anthony Colonia, executive director of Pender County Utilities, told the board staff worked with IT and the county’s Tyler Munis system to export and reformat bills for immediate mailing. Brian Terry, the utility superintendent, said customer-service and IT staff uploaded the exported bills to the county’s third-party printing vendor and expected bills to go out the next day or shortly thereafter.
Terry said the county is using Munis’ default utility-bill template for the immediate mailing; the template includes a one-year consumption history and will be further customized to add office hours and phone numbers on future iterations. He urged customers to create a self-service account so they could view and pay bills online; county staff said some customers may be able to receive billing by email in an experimental phase the county is working to implement.
Action requested: none; staff reported the operational workaround and next steps. Commissioners thanked staff for the rapid response.
Ending: County staff said they will continue to refine the bill layout and portal functions and will monitor customer questions as community members receive the mailed bills.
