(1) Customer bills
must:
(a) Be issued at intervals not to
exceed three months and identify if the water company is billing in arrears or
advance;
(b) Show a reference to
the applicable rate schedule;
(c)
Identify and show each separate charge as a line item;
(d) Show the total amount of the
bill;
(e) Include enough
information that, together with tariff rates, the customer can calculate his or
her bill (a copy of the tariff is available for review at company or from the
commission upon request);
(f) Show
the date the bill becomes delinquent if not paid. The minimum specified time
must be fifteen days after the bill's mailing date, if mailed from within the
state of Washington, or eighteen days if mailed from outside the state of
Washington, after the bill's mailing date.
A customer may request to pay by a certain date that is not
the normally designated payment date when showing good cause. Good cause may
include, but is not limited to, adjustment of a billing cycle to parallel
receipt of income. The preferred payment date must be prior to the next invoice
date.
(g) Include the water
company's name, business address, and telephone number and/or emergency
telephone number by which a customer may contact the company;
(h) If the customer is metered, include the
current and previous meter readings, the current read date, and the number and
kind of units consumed;
(i) Show
taxes and any tax percentage rate that the taxes are computed from. Taxes must
be totaled to show a total taxed amount. Upon request, the company must provide
a detail of the computation of the tax amount. Taxes, as used here, represent
municipal occupation, business and excise taxes that have been levied by a
municipality against the company, and are being passed on to the customer as a
part of the charge for water service; and
(j) Clearly identify when a bill has been
estimated.
(2) Each
water company may prorate bills for customers who have taken service for a
fraction of the billing period. If the company does not have its method of
prorating bills in its tariff, the company must prorate bills in the following
manner:
(a) For flat rate service, the charge
must be prorated on the basis of the proportionate part of the period during
which service was rendered.
(b) For
metered service the charge will be equal to:
(i) The applicable minimum charge as shown in
the company's tariff must be prorated on the basis of the proportionate part of
the period during which service was rendered; plus
(ii) Any water usage charge computed using
rates and allowances shown in the company's tariff.
(3) The water company must include
its method for estimating bills in its tariff. Estimating of bills is allowed
for no more than two consecutive billing cycles.
(4) When a company has cause to back-bill a
customer, the company must allow the customer payment arrangements, if
requested, for the same number of months to pay equal to the cumulative total
of months being back-billed. (Example: If the company is back-billing for a
one-year period, the company must allow the customer twelve months of equal
payments to pay the total amount of the back billing.) These payments will be
in addition to current billings.
