‘I got a $15,000 bill': Newton residents shocked by wild water bills

A Newton, Massachusetts, resident who received a $15,000 water and sewer bill right before Thanksgiving is calling for more transparency around how the city is calculating overage charges.

Newton residents have been getting estimated usage bills since the water meter transmitters stopped sending readings to City Hall in 2019. The city started replacing more than 30,000 water meter transponders in the spring as part of a $16.6 million project. With about 4,000 transponders replaced to date, some residents are now getting hit with five-figure catchup bills and many more are expected to come.

“To help others avoid the same reaction that I got, there’s got to be much more explanation to these overage bills,” Newton resident Marc Heimlich told NBC10 Boston on Monday. “I mean, I got a $15,000 bill with no explanation.”

Heimlich received a water and sewer bill for $15,207.97 right before Thanksgiving, charging him for the overage since 2020 at the highest rate. He quickly filed a petition calling for change and set up a meeting with Mayor Ruthanne Fuller and Department of Public Works on Monday. Fuller declined an interview for this story and the DPW did not reply to NBC10 Boston's requests for comment.

“I think a lot of this comes down to communication and the communication simply has not been there,” Newton City Councilor Bill Humphrey said.

When pressed, the city applies a smoothing analysis, which looks at the rates at the time the water was used. That cut Heimlich’s bill down by about $5,000 dollars. During a meeting Monday, Heimlich urged the mayor to automatically apply that smoothing analysis to all residents, cap the overage amounts and bring the rates down. He noted that MWRA data shows Newton residents are charged about 41% more than the average rate.

Newton City Councilor Julia Malakie said the city is working with IT to automate the process of smoothing the catchup bill, so the rates reflect what they were in previous fiscal years.

“If that can be automated people won’t have to ask for that to happen,” Malakie said. “I don’t know why it wasn’t done initially. Maybe they didn’t realize how big a problem it was going to be.”

Meanwhile, Humphrey said he’s been warning the mayor’s office about this issue since February.

“Even if the data was correct and that’s what they owe, it’s the city’s responsibility to be billing people correctly during that entire time,” Humphrey said. “If it goes for several years you can’t say you have 30 days to pay or a 12 month payment plan. You need to have a better response than that in my opinion.”

The city is offering residents with catchup bills two interest-free payment options; the first agreement spreads the balance owed equally over 12 months, while the other allows for minimal monthly payments for 11 months with a final balloon payment in month 12.