The City provides water and/or sewer service to customers in Akron and many surrounding communities. The total service area is approximately 100 square miles. "We read and bill approximately 6,000 different accounts every other day. The current grouping of many accounts makes it very difficult to read them on a monthly basis," said Michael McGlinchy, Public Utilities Bureau manager.

McGlinchy continued, saying, "For example, one of our reading and billing sequences involves accounts in the village of Mogadore and Bath and Copley townships. We drive our automated meter reading vehicle approximately 200 miles over this two-day period. After we make the revisions, we will read accounts in Mogadore with those in Ellet. The reduced drive time will ensure that we will efficiently read everyone's account monthly."

Approximately 8,000 of the city’s 83,000 water and sewer accounts will be affected by the changes. Customers most affected are in the village of Mogadore and Copley and Bath townships.

Customers whose billing date will change by more than five days will have an opportunity to retain their existing bill date. The City will mail a form to these property owners in November. The form must be filled out, signed and returned within five days to retain the current billing date.

McGlinchy said the City does not want to create a hardship on anyone by changing their payment due date but is making the changes to ensure we efficiently provide customers with accurate monthly meter readings.