The Ishpeming City Council meets on Wednesday evening. The council finalized updates to the city's utility practices and metering infrastructure. (Journal photo by Abby LaForest)

ISHPEMING — The Ishpeming City Council, led by Mayor Pat Scanlon, finalized updates to the city’s utility practices and metering infrastructure at its Wednesday meeting.

The council voted unanimously to approve a new monthly billing schedule for all utility customers. Its goal is to make the schedule more simplistic, predictable, and repetitive. The schedule follows these dates every month:

≤ On the 5th of each month, prior bills are due. Bills that aren’t paid by the 5th will be considered delinquent and a 5% penalty will be assessed against the account.

≤ On the 8th of each month, current month bills are issued. If you have a delinquent balance or were assessed a penalty, it will appear on your bill.

≤ On the 15th of each month, shut-off notices will be sent, and a shut-off notice fee of $25 will be assessed against the delinquent account. Compared to the prior practice, this new billing schedule pushes the formal grace period from the 5th to the 15th of each month.

≤ On the 25th of each month, it is your final day to pay delinquent balances. The city drop box is available 24/7 and payments received before the office opens on the 26th will be credited to the previous day.

≤ On the 26th of each month, outstanding delinquent balances will render an account eligible for disconnection of service. Compared to the prior practice, there is now a formal grace period between account delinquency and shut-off (between the 5th and the 26th).

The city offers online payment options and autopay, which can be found online at ishpemingcity.org. If you or someone you know is struggling with a utility bill, the city encourages you to reach out early and often, rather than waiting until your account is in shut-off status.

During Wednesday night’s meeting, the council also voted to forgo the annual 5% utility bill increase for 2025, citing income collected based on proper water meter data collection.

“This winter, the council took action to pause our annual five percent utility billing increase. Some of the background on that was that with all of the new hearing technology and the billing policy updates that we’ve been working on turning around the grant office, we saw our water revenues climb pretty quickly in a short period of time,” said Grant Getschow, the city’s finance director and Deputy City Manager. “(We) wanted to stop and evaluate more information before we mindlessly raised rates, and we wanted to see if we needed to do this. So looking at your year-to-date revenue in water and sewer accounts, which represents four months worth of billing, you’re (the city) at exactly 30 percent of the target grant interest for the year. We’re basically nailing it on the money. My recommendation at this time in the year is to forego the 2025 rate increase.”

“The thing (is), we put in over 2,500 meters. Every citizen, every business, every place that uses water in the city has a new meter, an accurate meter, and AquaHawk monitors it all. So we’re collecting from places that didn’t have a meter at all, from places that had a meter but it hadn’t run and nobody ever said, ‘Well, we should go and check it.’ So we’ve got a lot of funds that were uncollected, that were dismissed, and a lot of funds that were uncollected just by system neglect,” said Scanlon. “So we’re doing really well. The point is that we didn’t pick this 5 percent. It was brought to us under the Michigan Treasury Department and the government agencies that say ‘If we’re borrowing money, we want to know we’re getting our money back.’ So I’m really happy to say that thanks to our DPW and our office people, we’re collecting pretty much every penny that’s due to us.”

The city also voted to accept City Manager Randy Scholz’s grant application to the 2025 Native American Heritage Fund, which is an application for $20,000 to help fund the Jiikakamiigad (meaning “celebration of heavens” in Anishinaabemowin) Powwow, spearheaded by Sarah Garver, who is a Native American resident and business owner in Ishpeming. The total cost for the event would be $23,000, and the remaining $3,000 would be raised by the event and fundraising, at no cost to the city.

A special city council meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m. on July 9 as a listening and information session regarding fluoride concerns. That meeting will take place in the council chambers at city hall, located at 100 East Division Street. The next regular city council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on July 16.

For more information about the city council, as well as detailed council packets and documents, visit the city’s website at ishpemingcity.org/city-council-2/city-council-agendas-and-minutes/.