New Castle County officials say they will recoup about 85 percent of the $218,000 in sewer fees that weren't assessed to thousands of ratepayers last year.
Initially, administration officials did not want to try to collect since it was the county's fault that bills sent to nearly 7,000 customers were too low, but some council members thought they should be billed.
The News Journal reports that a deal reached between County Executive Tom Gordon and the council will forgive customers who owed less than $11.05. That will halve the number of affected households.
“We’re going to look across the county for the best practices so we don’t have this problem again,” Gordon told the paper.
The problem arose when Artesian Water switched from a quarterly to a monthly billing system. The county is giving credits to more than 21,300 customers who were overbilled a total of $675,000.
“We are hopeful that this compromise will help foster a new spirit of cooperation and compromise with our friends in the legislative branch,” deal broker county Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi told the paper.
