Overdue for Change EDITORIAL

LIBERTY, July 14, 2010 – Managing an organization’s accounts receivable and how it is done has changed a lot over the years. The objective is to insure timely payment and collection of bills owed to the organization.

Being a person who’s done it for years I know something about how to go about it.

It is a common and widespread practice today for customers of an organization or business to specify and change the billing cycle or due date of when a payment is due.

When you go to the bank to make a loan on a car, you can discuss with your banker and negotiate when the loan payment will be due.

Credit card companies give their customers the flexibility to change the due date on their account.

In the modern world of computers that we live in today that’s possible everywhere but the City of Liberty.

When Councilman Al Simmonson asked City Manager Gary Broz in the City Council meeting on Tuesday night whether a resident’s due date could be changed, Broz responded with an explanation about how the City manages it’s utility billing.

He explained that the City was divided into 5 geographical areas for the purpose of reading meters. When the meters are read in one of the sections the city then generates bills for that section. Everyone in a given section receives a bill during the same billing cycle.

What is really happening is that the billing cycle and the billing due date is being determined by when some guy with the city reads your meter and this can not be changed according to Broz.

Well, you can read the meter any day you want to. You can even continue to read the meters in the same way that it is currently being done. But there has been no satisfactory reason ever given as to why every resident in a given section of the City must receive a bill at the same time. Just because you read the meter on a given day, doesn’t mean that you have no flexibility in when you send the bill.

Receivables are managed to insure prompt on time payment. This is the very reason customers of all most all businesses are allowed to select and/or change the due date on almost any recurring bill they receive. In managing receivables in this fashion the number of past due customers is reduced and on time payment rates increase.

People are allowed to have input concerning the due date of the bill so that they can have the bill due at a time of the month when there are funds available in the household budget to pay it.

But for some reason there is a hard a fast policy of the City for the billing cycle and due date to be determined by when your meter is read. Without a rational explanation of the management policy I’m beginning to think the reason must be, “We’ve always done it this way.” It’s time to change and get into the modern world.

As far as I know this is the way that the City of Liberty has always done things but times change and most organizations and companies have figured out better ways to manage their receivables in order to increase on time payment.

No matter when you read the meter, in this computer age, you can send the bill and set a due date anytime you want. It’s the thing to do.

A significant number of Liberty residents on the City’s PAST DUE LIST, including the senior citizens written about in previous articles, would not even be there if the City would quit being so rigid and backward in their management of their receivables.

It’s high time the City quit running things like they did in 1950’s and get into the modern world. It would help both the citizens of Liberty and the City as well by reducing the number of delinquent accounts.

By Allen Youngblood