Effective Feb. 1, the town of Alderson will implement a new policy for discontinuing utility services for delinquent customers.

Previously, customers who had not paid their water, sewer, and municipal fee bills were notified by letter and by the hanging of door tags. Starting in February, they will still get a letter notifying them of the cut-off but will have telephone calls placed to their phone number of record at 24 and 48 hour intervals before the service is cut off. These calls are recorded electronically and stored in the Town’s system. That record is acceptable to the Public Service Commission as meeting the “two points of contact” requirement.

The policies of the WV Public Service Commission and the Town of Alderson both require that “the customer must advise the utility of any change of address, phone number, etc.” Over the past year, the Town of Alderson has made numerous requests to utility customers to update their account information with new 911 addresses and any new phone numbers. Account information is required to be current.

Mayor Travis Copenhaver said, “By the time customers are notified of a potential cut-off, they are at least one month over-due. It takes a lot of staff time to prepare and deliver door tags as cut-off notices. This process will save the town money and those savings will be passed on to our customers in the form of less frequent rate increases.”