You might recall that up until Dec 2008 American Utility Management (AUM) handled the billings for water and sewer at NCC. They did a very poor job and were fired. NCC then rolled the water and sewer costs into the quarterly dues payments.
Since consumption of water could not be accurately computed in advance, the water charge was set to a consumption level that would probably exceeded what was likely to be used. This with the expectation that the actual costs would be lower than what was being paid with the result that there would be an overage requiring a rebate at the end of the year.
Unfortunately this is no longer an option and the office advises: "Credits/refunds for overages are based on the total overall budget not on individual line items. The overall budget did not have an overage so there are not any credits or refunds to be distributed."
So nothing is coming back from the artificially high water bills. Considering how bad AUM was we are probably better off without them, even at the higher cost for the water/sewer billings.
Something else for your consideration is that when units stopped being billed for their actual consumption and the entire water/sewer bill was divided by 168 (and a bit more added on to ensure water/sewer wasn't under billed) that we ended up with EVERYONE paying exactly the same. 2/2's pay the same as 4/3's. People like myself who spent only 49 days on property in 2009 pay exactly the same as a family of 8 who are here and using water every day.
With the current crop of BOD/Officers it is unrealistic to think that this issue could be addressed by this useless, do nothing group, but when the BOD comes under the control of owners later this year (July)*, the problem should be adjusted so that the larger units pay a higher fee and the smaller units pay a bit less.
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* This turned out to be Dec. 2010, not July
Since consumption of water could not be accurately computed in advance, the water charge was set to a consumption level that would probably exceeded what was likely to be used. This with the expectation that the actual costs would be lower than what was being paid with the result that there would be an overage requiring a rebate at the end of the year.
Unfortunately this is no longer an option and the office advises: "Credits/refunds for overages are based on the total overall budget not on individual line items. The overall budget did not have an overage so there are not any credits or refunds to be distributed."
So nothing is coming back from the artificially high water bills. Considering how bad AUM was we are probably better off without them, even at the higher cost for the water/sewer billings.
Something else for your consideration is that when units stopped being billed for their actual consumption and the entire water/sewer bill was divided by 168 (and a bit more added on to ensure water/sewer wasn't under billed) that we ended up with EVERYONE paying exactly the same. 2/2's pay the same as 4/3's. People like myself who spent only 49 days on property in 2009 pay exactly the same as a family of 8 who are here and using water every day.
With the current crop of BOD/Officers it is unrealistic to think that this issue could be addressed by this useless, do nothing group, but when the BOD comes under the control of owners later this year (July)*, the problem should be adjusted so that the larger units pay a higher fee and the smaller units pay a bit less.
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* This turned out to be Dec. 2010, not July
