A small group of Bayfield utility customers habitually pay late, costing significant staff time to get them to pay, town trustees were advised on July 1.

Staff members want to speed up the process to collect on past due accounts, "so (delinquent customers) aren't at the next bill with the previous bill still unpaid," Town Manager Chris La May said.

Actually, he and Town Clerk Kathy Cathcart clarified this week that customers are already two months behind when they are listed as delinquent.

Cathcart said monthly bills go out by the 10th, and payment is due on the 28th. "They get a delinquent notice when their second bill becomes late," she said.

The delinquent list for June had just been done, with 65 customers on it, only six of them renters. Cathcart said that share of renters is fairly consistent. The town's utility billing system tracks how many times a customer has gotten a delinquent notice. All 65 from June are repeats, Cathcart said.

She told trustees last week, "Some are never current. They get a late notice with a week to pay. Then we hang a red tag notice" on the customer's door with a water shut-off date. "Most will wait until just before the shut-off (to pay). We know who they are. They come with just enough money to pay, or an excuse. We have to go through the same process every time."

La May said the process is in the town code, so changing the process means changing the code.

"There's a turn-off and turn-on fee in addition to the late fee," he said. "It has potential to get really out of hand."

Cathcart said the town can shut someone's water off, but, "The problem is sewer-only customers in Gem Village. They are some of the most habitual customers." The June delinquent list had 11 Gem Village customers.

La May, Cathcart, and Finance Director Erin Dunavant told trustees they spend a lot of time on this. They were skeptical that higher late fees would help.

Cathcart didn't think there had been an increase of late payers since water rates went up. "Bills are due on the 28th. We have to give five more days before we put a late fee on. That's state statute," she said.

La May added, "We have to provide notice after so many days, and they have so many days to pay. Are we being too accommodating?"

Dunavant said, "Because we are a little bit lenient, they leave it to last. They know they can push it further, because we don't immediately turn them off. We track bounced checks. There was one lady who repeatedly paid with bad checks."

About 75 late notice letters go out each month at a cost of $40, not counting staff time, Dunavant said. Around 40 a month get the red tag on the door knob.

Actual water shut-offs are rare, Cathcart said.

"As a town, we have a special ability to do a levy" for unpaid bills, La May said. "When you get your property tax (notice), there's an additional amount they have to pay. If you don't, there are liens. It's a cumbersome, long process. By the time property taxes go out, they've racked up another six months" of unpaid bills.

Public Works Director Ron Saba said the amount of uncollected payments is actually down. It used to be $16,000 to $17,000. Now it's around $4,000, he said. Staff is working on some proposed code changes, he said.

Trustee Ed Morlan commented, "I support any reasonable changes you come up with in the code. It's that human nature factor" to pay at the last minute. He suggested, "The town board could say 'No more excuses' to take that pressure off staff."

So are the late payers struggling families or deadbeats?

Saba said, "We go to turn them off and they have a satellite dish, big screen TV visible, the Cadillac in the driveway."

Dunavant added, "But there's also the bedraggled woman who comes in carrying a baby saying, 'Please don't shut me off.'"

La May and Cathcart didn't have an answer on whether the non-payers are struggling families or not. La May said this week, "I don't know if we can answer that." Cathcart added, "We can't judge. We don't know their personal situations."

There was general agreement by trustees on July 1 that the town needs to tighten up the process, especially to deal with habitual late payers.

La May wondered this week whether lenience is doing these folks any favor.

"If you are already two months late... because we aren't addressing it sooner, those bills get further out of hand, and costs can start skyrocketing. It's a Catch 22. Should we shut off water sooner and collect a smaller payment that they can probably collect the resources for, or let the bill get bigger and shut them off when it will be harder for them to make the payments," he asked.

"The message I want to get out is that those who think they can continue to not pay their bills, even if we can't shut them off, we can do a levy that's collected with their (property) taxes. They are ultimately going to have to pay it," he said.