Statesboro City Hall will open 90 minutes earlier than usual three days each month beginning in February to accommodate people paying bills for water and other city services on the cutoff day.

Mayor Jan Moore and City Manager Randy Wetmore announced the trial program during Tuesday’s regular council meeting.

About two months ago, Moore went to City Hall to sign some papers at the regular 8:30 a.m. opening time and found a line of about 20 people waiting at the front door, she said. She learned that this happens on certain days each month and asked Wetmore for a plan to let people in earlier so they could pay before going to work.

“I don’t want anybody jeopardizing their job to come in and pay a water bill,” Moore said.

Wetmore and City Clerk Sue Starling, whose department is responsible for billing, came up with the plan.

The three early-opening days next month will be Feb. 7, Feb. 14 and Feb. 21. City Hall will open at 7 a.m. “only on the first floor, only for the bill paying” on those days, Wetmore told the council.

“We’ll do that for four months to kind of do a little pilot to see if people take advantage of that,” he said. “If we still have people lining up at 8:30, we’re going to know that they’re fine with hurrying around and trying to get to work. But if they come in early, that will probably be something that we’ll continue.”

The city will have six staff members on duty starting at 7 a.m. those three days so that customers can get in and out quickly, he added.

“I hope this will show the general public that we really are trying to be responsive to their needs,” Moore said.

‘Cutoff days’

The three early-opening days in February are all Tuesdays. In other months, they would usually but not necessarily fall on Tuesdays, Starling explained in an interview.

The chosen dates, when people would normally be waiting at the door, are days when the city would actually cut off customers’ water for lack of payment. These come one day after the “cutoff day” stated on each customer’s bill, Starling said. So City Hall’s Feb. 7 early opening will follow the Feb. 6 cutoff stated on bills for that billing cycle.

“Everybody has got in the habit of knowing we won’t cut them off at 5 (p.m.),” Starling said. “They rush up here the next morning trying to beat the cutoff, so we’re going to open at 7 o’clock.”

There are three cutoff days, and also three due dates, each month because the city has three billing cycles, each including roughly one-third of its customers.

Not due dates

The official due dates are always the same dates each month, the fourth, 14th and 25th, which can fall on Saturdays, Sundays or holidays. The billing staff takes this into account in assigning late fees, which are added at least one day after the due date, Starling said. Late notices, restating the cutoff date, are then mailed.

Each cutoff day comes several days after the late fee date and more than a week after the original due date.

So, the early-opening days beyond February have not been announced. City staff members plan to include a notice of the dates in customers’ bills.

Comp time

Staffing the earlier 90 minutes three mornings a month should not cost the city much if anything extra, Starling and Wetmore said in interviews.

Their plan is to let the staff members who come in early take turns leaving early, or otherwise take time off in exchange.

“We might not be able to do that from time to time, but we’re definitely trying to have that happen and try to get as many (of the affected employees) to be able to use that time during that payroll period,” Wetmore said.

If time off is not always possible, the earlier openings should result in very limited overtime, he said.

Herald reporter Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.