Paperless Utility Billing Option Offered By The City Of Maumee

BY MIKE McCARTHY | MIRROR EDITOR — The city of Maumee has implemented a new paperless billing option to help ensure that residents receive their future water bills on time.

Maumee residents will have the option to sign up for the billing program by visiting the city’s website at www.maumee.org or by scanning the QR code accompanying this article. Residents who received their quarterly water bills this week will also find the QR code printed on a small slip of paper that accompanied their invoice.

Maumee water bills are mailed quarterly to residences and businesses, but there are three different cycles of billing spread throughout the city to even out payments over a 12-month period. For instance, some water bills will be due on April 15 while another round will be due on May 15 and a third round will be due on June 15. The three cycles rotate throughout the calendar year, providing a steady stream of income.

According to Maumee Finance Director Jennifer Harkey, the implementation of the paperless billing program will help address complaints from residents who have stated that they haven’t received their utility bills in a timely manner in the past.

“We are excited to offer this paperless billing option for the convenience of our Maumee residents,’’ said Harkey. 

“Paperless billing is mutually beneficial to our residents and the city. Residents will receive their bills timely, delivered right to their inbox,” Harkey continued. “It will help the city streamline internal processes in the utility billing department.”

Harkey explained that Maumee residents have long had the option to pay their water bills online, but the actual utility invoices have always been sent via U.S. Mail with no paperless option available for residents until now. There are instances where mail can be lost in delivery or misplaced by the customer.

This will be the first of a few significant changes for the Maumee utility billing department this year. The city is working on modernizing its electronic bill payment system, and those changes will be announced once the system is ready to be implemented within the next few months.

The city is also in the process of hiring a new utility billing manager following the retirement of the previous manager.

In related news, Keystone Utility Systems had been busy replacing the defective batteries in many of Maumee’s residential and business water meters for the past several months, but that progress has been halted recently due to inventory supply chain issues pertaining to a shortage of new batteries.

“They were making really good progress until they had to leave town due to the lack of inventory,” Harkey said.

Keystone expects to resume its battery replacement work sometime in May, once inventory has been replenished.