February 1, 2010 -- The City of Cape Coral is sorting out the recently discovered billing issue related to potential sewer overcharges to some residential accounts.  The overcharges began in early 2005.  We do not yet know the total dollar amount of the overcharges yet; however, we do know that we may be looking at about 143,000 monthly bills.  PLEASE NOTE: These are individual "bills" not individual "customers."  Media stories may be leading some utility customers to believe they will be due a refund when they will not.

This billing issue only affects residential customers who had water usage in excess of 10,000 gallons in a given month.  At this point, we have about 143,000 monthly, residential "bills" since 2005 that show water usage in excess of 10,000 gallons.  To provide some perspective, the City issued about 3,000,000 monthly, residential bills in this same period.  The number of bills currently being scrutinized is less than 5% of the total, monthly bills issued, so only a limited number of existing residential customers will meet this criteria.    

Also, there is no intent at this time to recoup any refunds issued through higher rates for all customers.  The Water & Sewer Fund is solvent; however, current and future sewer rates were established based on revenues anticipated from uncapped sewer charges.  Since the cap has been reinstated, sewer rates will need to be evaluated to see if estimated rate adjustments will be sufficient to meet the operating costs of the system.