January 25, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            The new service will be available to residential and commercial accounts.

            Customers using this new service will be able to pay their bills at any time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and can also view their current bill, access their billing history and see historical consumption information.

            To enroll, you need to go to http://www.wakeforestnc.gov  and click on the “online bill payment” icon. You will need to have one of your town bills at hand to enter your account number and service address as they appear on the bill. You will then create a user name and password which will allow you to access your account.

            “It will be a huge help. It will help lighten the load,” Drew Brown, the customer service supervisor, said. A number of the town customers already pay their bills with credit or debit cards, but they have to go to town hall to do so.

            The system as designed “is pretty user-friendly,” Brown said, but it will require people to enter their names and addresses exactly as on the bills: if the bill reads Main Street, type in Main Street not Main St., for example.

            Brown is also preparing to unveil another improvement, automatic meter reading for the electric system by telephone.

            He said this week he and others on the town staff had just seen a test by the third of three bidders using 200-300 accounts and showing how the system would work.

            The City of Raleigh, which owns the water and sewer systems, is also planning automatic water meter reading, this time by radio. Brown said he was not sure of the city’s schedule, but “they told us they would like to get it done as quickly as possible. I think it’s safe to say that within the next twelve months the town will be completely automatic for water and electric.”

            The change in the electric meter reading will affect the town’s meter readers. “We will not be going door-to-door,” Brown said. There will be a need for on-site meter reading for commercial accounts where the demand meter has to be reset each month.

            Brown said the town board and administration have agreed to keep all the meter-reading positions but use the personnel for different functions such as meter technician, home energy audits, maintaining accounts and customer service. The positions have not been defined yet.

            The town has one lead meter reader with a pay grade of 9, which has a salary range from $25,310 to $41,228, and three meter readers with a pay grade of 7, which has a salary range from $22,957 to $37,395.

            For more information about this online utility payment plan or other utility questions, you can call Brown at 554-6107.