A growing number of Prichard residents say they are refusing to pay a charge that regularly appears on their water bills, arguing they are being billed for city services they are not actually receiving.
Prichard resident Tim Surrett said a municipal fee keeps showing up on his water bill, and he doesn’t understand what the charge covers. Surrett said he isn’t paying it.
“It’s a ridiculous thing,” Surrett said.
Surrett said he went to the Prichard Water Works and Sewer Board building on Clark Avenue to raise the issue with a clerk, but the conversation ended without a resolution.
“She asked me if I had the one that was highlighted in yellow,” Surrett said. “I said no, ma’am. I didn’t know it was anywhere. And she said you going to pay it? I said, no, I will pay the water bill. I said, what is it? She said, police protection and trash pickup. I said, we ain’t got neither one, she started laughing at me.”
Front desk workers at the Prichard Water and Sewer Board said off camera that the fee is meant to cover garbage collection and emergency services such as police, fire and public works. The city itself did not respond to a request for comment on the fee.
Surrett said he’ll pay for the services he actually receives. He said his garbage hasn’t been picked up in weeks, so he isn’t willing to pay the additional charge on top of his water bill.
“We have trash piled up in front of my house as high as my head, and it has been out for two months,” Surrett said. “We’ve got a lot of people paying it and don’t even know they’re paying it. You know, I don’t have it, I ain’t paying it.”
The dispute comes as Prichard has struggled in recent weeks to maintain consistent garbage pickup citywide, after the city’s insurance carrier canceled its municipal liability policy and a leasing company repossessed several of the city’s garbage trucks. The City Council has since approved a temporary contract with a private hauler to help restore regular service.
Municipal fees bundled into utility bills are a common practice among Alabama cities, which often use water billing systems as a convenient way to collect flat charges for services like garbage collection, since nearly every household already has a water account. But the practice can create confusion and frustration when residents feel the services funded by the fee are not being delivered reliably, as Surrett and, by his account, other Prichard residents say has been happening.
Prichard’s water and sewer system, operated by the Prichard Water Works and Sewer Board, has faced its own separate and more serious troubles in recent years, including a multi-million-dollar federal fraud case tied to the utility’s former operations manager and other employees. That case, unrelated to the municipal fee dispute, has drawn scrutiny to how the water board has been run and how ratepayer money has been spent.
For now, Surrett said he intends to keep paying only for the water service he receives, and nothing more, until the city can explain what the municipal fee is for and why residents say the corresponding services aren’t showing up.