Customers of the Snohomish County Public Utility District are demanding answers about why their bills have gone up drastically over the past few months.
Hayley Shapiro’s typical Snohomish County PUD electricity bill is about $60. But that changed this month.
“I was like, $481 dollars! I thought it was a typo. I thought they meant $48 and whatever cents,” explained Shapiro.
It’s a financial jolt that some of Snohomish County PUD’s 300,000 customers are feeling in their pocketbooks. Some have seen bills triple or quadruple in the last month.
Shapiro has lived in her house less than a year, is at work all day and lives alone. When she put her story on Facebook and it darn near broke the internet.
“Like instantly, within 20 minutes, I had like over 200 comments!” exclaimed Shapiro.
Jim West, assistant general manager for customer service at Snohomish County PUD, said the reason for the issues is that the utility changed its billing from bi-monthly to monthly billing.
“We’re getting more calls day to day. It’s about 30% more than last year,” said West. “We still read your meter every two months and we still bill you for how much electricity you use every two months. What’s different now, half way into that two months we are going to calculate an estimated bill.”
That estimate is from the previous year’s usage. In Shapiro’s case, her house was empty this time last year so her estimated bill was zero. The next month Snohomish County PUD added up her real usage over the two months and shocked her with that $481 bill. My advice, call the utility get on yearly billing that evens out your bill for the entire year.
“We certainly want to work with those customers who have questions or feel like they need assistance with the new system,” said West.
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