Recently, the Town notified Southborough water users about an accidental overcharge on the most recent bill. The notice instructed users to pay the bills in full (as overcharged) for the August 1st deadline.
Discrepancies will be deducted from the next bill.
For residential users the error ranged from $5.38 to $17.91.
The highest discrepancy amounts ($35.80 – $179.05) only applied to commercial users with large meters. (And most of those types of users would likely have high enough usage fees, that the discrepancy is fairly low in comparison to the total bill.)
Back in March, I reported on the revised water rates that were implemented effective the March – June quarter. As I noted then, “The revised fees include an over 15% increase in the water usage rates for FY26 bills. But that spike will be somewhat offset by the 15% decrease in the Base Charge for meters hooked up to the system.”
Unfortunately, a “technical error” resulted in the bills using the old base charge fees. The Town’s notice (dated July 3rd and emailed on July 7th) explains:
Due to a technical error in the Water Billing System, the First Quarter (July 2025) water bills were processed and mailed using outdated base fee rates. The table below summarizes the incorrect base charge billed, the correct current base charge, the amount overcharged, and the adjusted base charge that will be applied to your next bill to correct for this discrepancy.
Please pay the bill you received in full. The overcharged amount will be credited in your next quarterly bill by adjusting the base fee accordingly.
We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Southborough Water Department.
Based on looking at my own bill, the new bills did include the correctly updated table listing the new fees. However, in the “Charge Summary” column on the right side of the bill that adds up the charges for the account, the old fee was used.
The DPW’s memo included a table (below) detailing the discrepancies based on meter size and how they will be addressed on the next bill:
