Last year Tennessee American Water notified Chattanooga leaders that it would stop including sewer fees in its monthly statements.
The city contracted with a private company to do the job, and those bills are showing up in mailboxes this week.
Not everyone is happy with the new procedure.
If you live within the Chattanooga city limits, you'll get two bills this month---one for water from Tennessee American, and one from a California company for your sewer service. For many homeowners, the sewer bill will be about 3 dollars higher if they don't pay by check.
MANNY RICO, CITY COUNCIL MEMBER "Here's the thing that bothers me about people in my district down south end. You know like Alton Park, East Lake..things like that. Those people probably can't go pay on time. They don't have you know..the only they are going to pay is by ....money order."
The Chattanooga city council discussed the changes and slightly higher fee at their meeting Tuesday. Most members decided to ask for more information before commenting.
RICHARD BEELAND. MAYOR'S OFFICE "There are some fees that are associated with certain methods of payment ..Those are not uncommon..in any business."
The mayor's office says the out of town company was selected and no local firm wanted to do the billing when the privately-owned water company dropped the service.
RICHARD BEELAND, SPOKESMAN, CHATTANOOGA MAYOR'S OFFICE "Is that the best way to do it? That's the only way we can do it at this point..there is no other alternative.
Is the city getting a lot of complaints?
RICHARD BEELAND "No, we've received 4 complaints since the bills were issued. We have 55-thousand customers here who are receiving a separate sewer bill for the 1st time ever...and we've had about a thousand calls to 3-1-1 about that."
Hamilton county citizens are also facing some billing changes.
RICHARD BEELAND "We're all in the same boat together, and we're all looking at ways that we can reduce or eliminate some of the fees..if one of us can, that would apply to all of us."
City council members say they want to look into a report that some of those sewer bills are late arriving, and are due three days after they arrive in the mailbox.
