Polisena: Push on water bills a success

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Several weeks ago, Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena implemented an aggressive program to collect long overdue water bills.

Since then, the total amount of outstanding payments had dropped from more than $270,000 to $10,000, the mayor said.

“In some cases, customers had let their bill run into thousands of dollars,” he said. “I was obviously very concerned about those overdue bills. After all, why should 99 percent of Johnston taxpayers subsidize those people who have not paid their water bills?”

The town first sent people who had not paid their water bills two notices “to give people time to come in and get their accounts in order,” the mayor said. “But that didn’t work, as some people ignored the town’s warnings and in several weeks were shut off.” No payment plans were offered by the town.

Polisena praised the “exemplary work” of tax collector Bethany Alviano, and called the program a “complete success.”

The push on water bills came as the town wrapped up a major re-certification effort on the Homestead Exemption, which was established in 2007 and allows qualifying homeowners to pay taxes on 80 percent of their property’s value rather than the full amount.

The town had not previously had a re-application process in place for the exemption, and Polisena said the re-certification was meant to weed out those violating the spirit of the tax credit or using local addresses to allow out-of-town students to attend Johnston’s schools.

The new Johnston water bills will be mailed on Nov. 1. Customers of the Johnston Water Authority are billed twice yearly, in November and again in June.

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