Residential, commercial utility bills on hold until June

By COLLIN GALLANT on March 23, 2020.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

All residential and small commercial utility bills in Medicine Hat are on hold until mid-June, city finance officials announced late Friday as they implemented a provincial order to defer bills to help ease financial aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic response.

That Alberta government order was announced midweek, as the city was already putting a halt to local disconnect proceedings.

The new measure is automatic, manning no action is needed by nearly 21,000 other utility account holders in Medicine Hat.

“There are three elements,” explained corporate services commissioner Dennis Egert during a Thursday press conference “Firstly, the deferral of payments for a 90-day period, the deferral of any late charges or late fees, and the third is there will be no utility disconnects during the 90-day period.”

Calls from the Alberta Health Service to remain home and avoid groups has led to a deep decline in business activity and worries about maintaining finances as workers are sent home, laid off or are worried about going out to pay bills.

“We hear a lot of concern,” said Egert, whose department on March 18 issued a statement that any local disconnects already in process would not proceed, and the provincial program was blended into the city’s billing process by the weekend.

The process for residential, small commercial and farm customers is automatic. Bills will not due as usual until mid-June. Medium and large commercial and industrial customers, as well as streetlighting customers, such as condo complexes in need of deferral are asked to contact the billing department at collections@medicinehat.ca or by phone at 403-529-8113.

City councillors have said they will ask administrators for other potential measures that could ease financial worry.

Egert said Friday that work will come soon, but the immediate action was a needed first step.

“Initially we’ll align to the province and align that to a 90-day process, like all utility (providers) and municipalities across the province are doing,” said Egert. “During that time we’ll evaluate and see what the effect of the (pandemic) is in the City of Medicine Hat.”

Rural utilities

follow suit

AltaGas announced late Saturday that it is rolling a provincial deferral order into its operations and should be able to provide more information this week to customers throughout the province and in Southeast Alberta.

The Forty Mile Gas Co-op reported that operations are continuing, though the main office in Dunmore is closed to everyone but employees for the foreseeable future. The entity’s annual general meeting, scheduled for March 30, has been postponed.

As well, rural power provider, Equs, as closed its shop south of Medicine Hat to the public, but states that crews are on standby to respond to line outages and other operational matters.

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