Separating Sewer from Water (Bill)

— from Paul Kamin —

Every month, Eastsound Water Users Association, (EWUA or “Eastsound Water”) and Eastsound Sewer and Water District (ESWD or Eastsound Sewer) receive payments intended for each other. Folks send the Sewer District payment for their water bills and they send Eastsound Water payment for their sewer bills. Staff at each organization normally catch the mistake and get the payments to the intended party.

However, misdirected payments are becoming more problematic. More and more people are utilizing their Bank’s ONLINE BILL PAYING Services. When these services were first introduced, you could issue checks from your Bank’s website, and the Bank would print and mail a paper check per your directions.

Eastsound Water has recently added a feature to our Billing Software that actually eliminates the paper check process. Instead, the payment you direct the Bank to make is “intercepted” electronically, and never actually becomes a paper check. This fully electronic system is more efficient for both the Bank and the payment recipient. (In this case Eastsound Water).
HOWEVER, the vendor Eastsound Water is working with (VANCO) is having some difficult. With some frequency Eastsound Water is intercepting Sewer District payments, and these payments are being deposited into Eastsound Water’s account. NOT GOOD.

Why is this happening? The VANCO system has asked Eastsound Water to delineate how members are likely to complete their checks. Commonly, members have been using the following:

• EWUA
• E.W.U.A.
• Eastsound Water
• Eastsound Water Users
• Eastsound Water Users Association

Unfortunately the system is also picking up checks written to Eastsound Sewer and Water District as well as those addressed to one of the above addresses. We are attempting to get VANCO to re-write their coding to limit this issue.

In the meantime we wanted to let our members know of this issue and ask for some help in eliminating the “computer misunderstanding.” When you are directing a payment for your sewer service to the Sewer District, please direct your check to EASTSOUND SEWER DISTRICT.
Staff at the Sewer District have assured me that checks addressed as such will not present a problem for them to process.