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practices (BMPs) should be implemented by the appropriate regulatory oversight agencies. BMP standards could greatly improve resident understanding and satisfaction with third party billing, and reduce consumer complaints to regulators. Based on the research results, the following standards for best management practices for water and wastewater billing practices are recommended. BMPs for the billing service industry and for property owners are essentially the same and apply equally. In many cases, property owners and managers handle their own billing for water and are in fact the billing entity. Regardless of who produces the bill, either the owner/manager or a third party billing service company, it is incumbent upon the owner/manager to ensure the proper implementation of these best management practices. The owner maintains the underlying responsibility for the way the billing program is implemented and managed. Resident rights related to water billing are closely tied to the BMPs for the water billing industry and provide a set of reasonable expectations for residents receiving water and wastewater bills from largely unregulated billing entities. These best practices are intended to apply generally to both submetering and RUBS billing unless specifically noted. 1) Billing entity. Where permitted by law, water and wastewater utility bills may be issued by a property owner or qualified billing agent. Billing agents shall have appropriate insurance coverage. 2) Water cannot be dedicated to public use. Water and wastewater service will only be provided to residents of the property. Non-residents and the general public will not be served. (In many states, this ensures that the property owner is not deemed to be a public utility). 3) Common area and vacant units. The property owner shall pay for water and wastewater service used in common areas, administrative offices, vacant dwelling units, and other portions of the property not designated as dwelling units. Residents are only financially responsible for their own water and wastewater service costs. In RUBS properties, common areas should be separately metered. If not possible, a reasonable estimate of common area usage can be made that is based on the property’s specific common area amenities. 4) Water audit and leak repair. Before instituting any separate billing system, the property owner/manager shall conduct a water audit of all units and common areas, testing for leaks, including toilet tank flapper valve leaks, and repair all leaks identified. Upon institution of the separate billing system, the property owner/manager shall commit xlvi
to a reasonable standard of leak repair in all units, and shall maintain sufficient supplies of materials as may be necessary to ensure that common types of leaks (such as toilet flappers) are promptly repaired. When properly reported, non-emergency leakage at any plumbing fixture or fitting should be repaired within 5 business days. The process for reporting leaks and the owner/manager's commitment to leak repair shall be clearly stated in each resident's bill, and shall also be disclosed as part of the lease agreement. 5) Pass through of water and wastewater costs. Both the commodity and fixed service charges for water and wastewater shall be equivalent to the commodity charges contained in the property owner's bill from the local water and wastewater utility. 10 Neither the billing entity nor the owner/manager shall inflate the costs of these charges. Utility commodity charges and the billing entity charges shall be clearly stated on every bill provided to residents and such rates and charges shall also be disclosed as part of the rental agreement. 6) Submetering and RUBS methods and notification. Water and wastewater bills to residents shall be calculated on the basis of fair and reasonable methods of cost allocation, including submeter readings or allocation formulas. The measurement or allocation method and/or formula is considered a matter of public record and shall be clearly stated on every bill provided to residents. The water and wastewater billing arrangement shall be fully disclosed to the resident in the rental agreement. When a new billing program is started, owners shall provide residents with at least 60 days notice prior to implementation. Billing can only begin after lease signing/renewal. 7) Billing practices. Water and wastewater bills shall be sent promptly after meter readings are made or after the master-meter bill from the utility is received. This is essential to ensure that the price signal is received in reasonably close proximity to the time of consumption. A reasonable amount of time (minimum of 10 business days) shall be allotted between the residents' receipt of a bill and the date payment is due. 8) Records retention and inspection. The property's master water and wastewater utility bills shall be retained for a period of not less than 24 months, and shall be available for inspection by any resident at reasonable hours and without charge. However, a nominal fee can be charged for any requests to copy bills. 9) Fees. The billing entity may charge reasonable fees. Fees are divided into two categories: (a) recurring service fees; and (b) other fees. Recurring service fees (also called monthly fees, administrative fees, or meter fees) shall be charged to the property owner/property manager, not to the residents. Where not subject to regulation, the owner is in the best position to negotiate favorable service fee charges with the billing company and responsibility for recurring service fees gives the owner an interest in negotiating the best fee. Property owners should pay the meter service fee since it is part of the 10 In most cases, these charges will be based on the local utilities' rate schedules for multifamily housing, often priced by the size of the service connection to the master meter. In the case of duplex, 3-family, and 4-family units, the smaller service connections to these structures may result in their being charged at the same rate as single-family residences. xlvii
Page 1 and 2: NATIONAL MULTIPLE FAMILY SUBMETERIN
Page 3 and 4: CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES............
Page 5 and 6: Matched-Pair Analysis .............
Page 7 and 8: LIST OF TABLES Table ES.1.1 Breakdo
Page 9: Table 6.6 Elasticity values, analys
Page 12 and 13: Figure 4.30 RUBS water bill #6 ....
Page 14 and 15: investigated local water savings as
Page 16 and 17: We are grateful to the members of a
Page 18 and 19: quantitative aspects of separate bi
Page 20 and 21: 3. Owner/postcard survey: To identi
Page 22 and 23: "averages" of impact property water
Page 24 and 25: in-rent properties, others used the
Page 26 and 27: of these models included the billin
Page 28 and 29: 70 Average Annual Water Use Per Uni
Page 30 and 31: COSTS AND BENEFITS Beyond quantifyi
Page 32 and 33: service charge, then the resident w
Page 34 and 35: Billing Method Efficient Fixtures?
Page 36 and 37: 70 Avg. Water Use per MF Unit (kgal
Page 38 and 39: REGULATORY FRAMEWORK REVIEW The fra
Page 40 and 41: Table ES.1.12 NSUAA Summary of Stat
Page 42 and 43: above, the researchers offer the fo
Page 44 and 45: service is preferable, and would he
Page 48 and 49: infrastructure of the building and
Page 50: multi-family housing. The transfer
Page 53 and 54: CHAPTER 1 INTRODU CTION More and mo
Page 55 and 56: In 1998, 15.0%, or 15.4 million, of
Page 57 and 58: TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS OF BILL
Page 59 and 60: submetering. With utility-submeteri
Page 61 and 62: all the two bedroom units for $20 p
Page 63 and 64: HOW TO USE THIS REPORT This report
Page 67 and 68: CHAPTER 2 LITERAT URE REVIEW As the
Page 69 and 70: A review of the literature unearthe
Page 71 and 72: The price elasticity of water deman
Page 73 and 74: expected. Additionally, McClelland
Page 75 and 76: submetered and five control (in-ren
Page 77 and 78: Another study might want to target
Page 81 and 82: CHAPTER 3 RESEARC H METHODS, APPROA
Page 83 and 84: 1. Selection of participating study
Page 85 and 86: STUDY SITE SELECTION The Study aime
Page 87 and 88: Figure 3.2 National Multiple Family
Page 89 and 90: Matched pair protocol/survey - conf
Page 91 and 92: information given the available bud
Page 93 and 94: survey. Service companies that prov
Page 95 and 96: in “business to business” calli
Page 97 and 98:
MATCHED PAIR SAMPLE The purpose of
Page 99 and 100:
The second part of the visit requir
Page 101 and 102:
epresentative of a known population
Page 103 and 104:
51 Table 3.7 Postcard survey statis
Page 105 and 106:
Table 3.8 Comparison of annual wate
Page 107 and 108:
postcard survey. Nevertheless, exam
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confidence interval ranged from 49.
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particular property (e.g., the mont
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State PUC officials - water commiss
Page 115:
10. The PROPID number appearing on
Page 118 and 119:
These costs represent the commodity
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The postcard survey provided inform
Page 122 and 123:
Table 4.4 Average number of units f
Page 124 and 125:
Two-thirds of the properties that r
Page 126 and 127:
Percent of Surveyed Properties with
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$700 Average Rent Per Bedroom ($) $
Page 130 and 131:
Percent of Surveyed Properties with
Page 132 and 133:
Impact properties were also more li
Page 134 and 135:
Table 4.8 Issues considered before
Page 136 and 137:
Percent of Surveyed Impact Properti
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60% Percent of Surveyed Properties
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From the visits, it was found that
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100% Percent of Surveyed Residents
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Roughly similar proportions of resi
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inserts for toilets (21%) or low-fl
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proportion were unsure, 37% from su
Page 150 and 151:
Table 4.18 Ownership and rental rat
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Figure 4.17 Submeter water bill #1
Page 154 and 155:
Page 156 and 157:
Page 158 and 159:
wastewater rates are not shown so t
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Figure 4.23 Hot water hybrid water
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RUBS Sample Bills Seven sample RUBS
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wastewater rates are not shown so t
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Figure 4.28 RUBS water bill #4 from
Page 168 and 169:
Figure 4.30 RUBS water bill #6 RUBS
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directly to and then paid by the th
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never subtracting for common area w
Page 174 and 175:
Late Fees At the start of water bil
Page 176 and 177:
124
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intuitively clear, and matches comm
Page 180 and 181:
Indoor water use was normalized on
Page 182 and 183:
Table 5.3 Summarized water use anal
Page 184 and 185:
easonable assumption since there is
Page 186 and 187:
Figure 5.1 shows the frequency dist
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40 Difference in Annual Water Use p
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after 1995. By including only those
Page 192 and 193:
70 Average Annual Water Use Per Uni
Page 194 and 195:
Table 5.11 Statistical tests compar
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Factors that Influence Water Use Th
Page 198 and 199:
Table 5.12 Association of categoric
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Indoor Water Use per Unit in 2001 I
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Table 5.13 Continuous factors from
Page 204 and 205:
Multivariate Models to Determine Im
Page 206 and 207:
properties built before 1995 were c
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70 Average Annual Water Use Per Uni
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A = Beta coefficient for “Propert
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substantially reduces the sample si
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Table 5.17 Model #2 coefficients an
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0.00 indicating that whatever fit d
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commodity charge for water and wast
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properties having generally lower w
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110 Average Annual Water Use Per Un
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analysis, intended to control best
Page 226 and 227:
Table 5.27 Paired samples test, all
Page 228 and 229:
Table 5.30 Estimated water use befo
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Table 5.33 Comparison of water savi
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180
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sector only reduced usage by 18% (A
Page 236 and 237:
Table 6.1 Avoided costs from submet
Page 238 and 239:
submetered. Complete responses of c
Page 240 and 241:
included in this cost/benefit analy
Page 242 and 243:
Table 6.3 Cost and benefit for owne
Page 244 and 245:
Perceived Concerns In the resident
Page 246 and 247:
With a service fee, residents could
Page 248 and 249:
Table 6.4 Economic return for a res
Page 250 and 251:
ANALYSIS OF PRICE ELASTICITIES Econ
Page 252 and 253:
concluded that if a single elastici
Page 254 and 255:
esults from this analysis point to
Page 256 and 257:
over which they have control than d
Page 258 and 259:
According to the basic consumer cho
Page 260 and 261:
The consumer choice problem can be
Page 262 and 263:
210
Page 264 and 265:
water systems from compliance with
Page 266 and 267:
and methods of practice. NIST publi
Page 268 and 269:
Table 7.1 NSUAA Summary of State Re
Page 270 and 271:
New Surveys of State Agencies and W
Page 272 and 273:
the AWWA WaterStats 1999 database.
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Measures, which dispatches a public
Page 276 and 277:
Mississippi, Missouri, Pennsylvania
Page 278 and 279:
226 Table 7.6 Summary of utility re
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DISCUSSION - KEY EXAMPLES OF STATE
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ill. Condominium associations are g
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under construction after January 1,
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Weights and Measures Regulation In
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from the submetering. Meter testing
Page 290 and 291:
clean and decent housing or the lac
Page 292 and 293:
240
Page 294 and 295:
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE F
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complaints in all 50 states and app
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- Meters must demonstrate in testin
Page 300 and 301:
- Plumbing systems are space constr
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(2) Twisted or kinked flex supply l
Page 304 and 305:
252
Page 306 and 307:
Estimated Water Use By Different Bi
Page 308 and 309:
there are clear benefits to these s
Page 310 and 311:
study site. These values were then
Page 312 and 313:
immediately strengthens the owner's
Page 314 and 315:
among the nation's key strategies f
Page 316 and 317:
all repair and replacement decision
Page 318 and 319:
These findings underscore the obser
Page 320 and 321:
varies with volume of use) for mult
Page 322 and 323:
Recommendation 6 - Efficient plumbi
Page 324 and 325:
financially responsible for their o
Page 326 and 327:
individual unit, the volume allocat
Page 328 and 329:
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARC
Page 330 and 331:
Fixed rates - Part of a master mete
Page 332 and 333:
Total-capture submetering - a type
Page 334 and 335:
282
Page 336 and 337:
Corral, L.R. 1997. Price and Non-Pr
Page 338 and 339:
McClelland, L. 1980. Encouraging En
Page 340:
Young, C.E., K.R. Kinsley and W.E.
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