REVIEWING THE WATER POLICY

Cape Girardeau city officials on Monday night will review the city's water service disconnection policy. The evaluation comes on the heels of complaints from some residents that water service was cut off without prior notice.

A southside church had its water disconnected over a $11.35 bill that was late. The pastor of the church says he was never notified of the looming cut-off. The city says it sent the church a disconnect notice -- the fourth in the past 16 months.

The dispute has been the catalyst to prompt the city council to review the policy. City Councilman Richard Eggimann said the church is but one of several instances where customers have had their water cut off. He calls the incidents "horror stories."

But no one is getting water service shut off for paying bills on time. The bottom line is, if you pay your bill on time, you needn't worry about having service disconnected. Only a tiny percentage of the 15,000 city water customers -- about 1 percent -- has water service shut off each month for late payment of bills.

Still, there are some policy changes the city might want to consider. Union Electric, when it owned the city's water system, gave customers 40 days to pay delinquent water bills. That has since been reduced to 12 days.

Also, although the city notifies customers by mail that their water will be cut off if they don't pay their bills, it no longer hangs red warning tags on customers' doors. The city has said 1,200 to 1,500 such tags would have to be placed at customers' homes, which is redundant and costly. But if residents were given longer to pay delinquent bills, it is likely the number of customers requiring the tags would diminish significantly.

Another disparity seems to stem from the fact that some water customers have inside meters that can't readily be shut off. Deadbeat bill-payers in these households conceivably can go months in arrears without losing water service. This hardly seems fair, and until all the meters are easily disconnected, the city should ease its policy.

The city's water disconnect policy isn't unreasonable. But as long as customers pay their bills -- even if consistently late -- there is no good reason for cutting off their service. In those cases perhaps more lenience is in order.