Utility Bills
Combined Municipal Light, Water/Sewer and Trash Bills
While Utility Bills are calculated and mailed by the Holden Municipal Light Department, the Town Collector has the responsibility for collecting payments for those bills. The Light Department bills each account monthly, although the billing and due date for a particular account may vary somewhat from month to month.
If the Utility Bill is paid within 15 days, a 10% discount may be taken.
Utility Bills may be paid in one of the following ways:
By Mail (Lockbox)
The Collector has set up a lockbox at Century Bank that is dedicated to the collection of municipal Utility Bills. Included with all utility billings is a special return envelope that is printed and bar-coded with the lockbox address. Include the top portion of your bill with your payment.
Only utility payments should be sent in these envelopes. If other types of payments, such as tax or excise payments, are mailed in the utility lockbox envelope, this will inevitably delay those payments, or the funds remitted may be credited in error to the ratepayers utility account rather than to the intended account. Personnel at the lockbox site are trained to process only utility payments.
Cash should never be sent to the lockbox.
In Person at the Collector’s Office or the Light Department
Payments may be made at the Collector’s Office on the 2nd floor of the Starbard Municipal Office Building, Monday through Friday between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. (summer hours 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.), or at the Municipal Light Department, 1 Holden Street, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
If a receipt is desired, the entire bill should be brought to the office, where the receipt portion will be stamped and returned to the ratepayer.
Cash payments must be receipted. Please bring the entire bill if you intend to pay in cash.
In the Starbard Building Payment Box
Payments may be left in the locked box outside the back entrance to the Starbard Building. Only Town staff have keys to this box.
The box is opened twice each day, once in the morning and again 15 minutes before the close of the business day (usually 4:15 p.m., but 3:45 p.m. during the summer).
Payments that are left in the box after the last pickup for that day will be considered paid as of the next business day. If your bill is due for the discount on a particular day, be sure that you leave it in the box early enough in the day that you can be sure it will be credited as of that day. If you have any question about when your payment might be credited, it is better to bring the payment to the office rather than to leave it in the payment box.
On-Line Payments
Beginning with the bills issued on December 9, 2005, Utility Bills may be paid on-line using the Town’s UniPay system, which is run by UniBank. To pay your Utility Bill on-line, go to the Home Page of this web site and click on the “Pay Bills Online” button. Then choose “Utility Bills” on the next page, and you will be linked to the on-line payment system for Utility Bills.
To use the UniPay system:
Choose the type of payment from the drop down box.
Have your bill in front of you, because you will need to enter the account number.
There is no charge for a payment made by electronic transfer from your checking account. Please follow the directions on the payment site and make sure you are entering the correct numbers from your checkbook. DO NOT use the numbers on a debit card, which are not the same as your checking account number.
You may also pay using your MasterCard or Discover card, but if you want to use this payment method, you will have to pay the fees that are charged by the credit card companies.
For your protection, neither the Town of Holden nor UniBank stores payment information.
Confirmation: If you request it, a confirmation will be e-mailed to you by UniBank. Please note that this confirmation will verify only that the bank has received your payment information, but does not confirm the electronic transmission of funds.
Errors and/or Insufficient Funds: Occasionally, we are notified that a transaction has been reversed because an invalid account or routing number was used. In this situation, we must also reverse the payment, leaving your bill unpaid. If this happens, we will notify you by e-mail and also by U.S. mail so that you can reissue the payment either online or by sending a check to the Collector’s Office. If an on-line payment must be reversed because of insufficient funds, the Town of Holden will charge the statutory penalty of $25, just as we would for a check returned for this reason.
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