All those little charges do add up. Don't they?

Recently, I received my water bill and was confused. (Not an unusual condition for me to be in). This bill came from a small town called Forsyth located in southwest Missouri. (I would assume that it is typical of most water bills in other towns and burgs of similar size).

Now I think my little town has about 2,419 citizens with about 2.1 people living in each dwelling (source: http://www.city-data.com/city/Forsyth-Missouri.html). That means about 1200 homes, give or take, pay water bills whose amounts depend on some formula developed by some bureaucrat some time ago. Following is a section taken from Forsyth's web page (http://www.cityofforsythmo.com/page9.html)....

My questions are simple - 1) What formula was used to justify the cost of the infrastructure and its expansion and maintenance? 2) What do the Primary fee and sewer fee cover and why are they there? and 3) Where do the taxes go? Why are they even there?

Being a simple man, I am almost always perplexed at how we humans seem to make a game out of what and how we charge our fellow humans. (The problems starts at the top of the pile with the IRS. The federal internal revenue code is 2,412,000 words long and federal tax regulations are7,655,000 words long. And this does not include the substantial body of tax-related case law that is often vital to even fully understanding this unholy mess)! What we need and must do is to begin the work of making more simple that which is currently complex. And we can start that process at the local level with something as basic as a water bill!

Forsyth's puzzling water billing practice!

Forsyth MO – After recently moving from the outskirts of a small town in southwest Missouri to a location inside the city limits, I found that there were some new things to get used to....

Take my water/sewage bill, for instance. Apparently, even though city personnel do routinely read the meters, they don't actually record them on a consumers bill, preferring to estimated the amounts instead. OK, let me repeat that. They go to all the trouble of reading each meter (I've watched them) and then the City sends out a bill with what looks like a guesstimate! How do I know this. My meter reading always end up in even amounts! Hey guys and gals! If you're gonna guess at the readings, why did the City Fathers spend perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to install accurate meters in the first place?

Maybe this practice will catch on with the local power co-op. They could send out an electric bill for a 'ballpark amount' of what they think you used and then you, the consumer could, send them a check on what you think you 'should' pay them... based on a really good personal estimate of course!

Update: Shortly after posting this, I received a new billing that seemed to reflect an accurate reading. Boy! Talk about a fast reaction!