Two separate things raised Athens-Clarke water and sewer bills this fall, and many households saw both on the same statement. The first is a billing delay. Athens-Clarke County's switch to new billing software made some billing periods run past the usual four weeks. The second is the fiscal year 2027 rate schedule, which took effect July 1, 2026 and raised nearly every line on a residential bill.

The county expects to fix the first problem by the January 2027 billing cycle. The second doesn't go away. To work out what next year's bills will look like, you have to separate the two.

The delay the county has acknowledged

In an update on water and sewer billing delays posted October 15, 2026, the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government said its Public Utilities Department is working through delays that affected the timing of bills for some customers. Some billing periods ran longer than the usual four weeks, and those customers got higher bills than they expected.

According to the county, the main cause is the move to new billing software and a new customer portal. The upgrade forced changes to billing processes and long-standing procedures. Combined with the department's existing workload, those changes stretched billing timelines. The portal was supposed to launch in December 2026. It is now expected in late 2027.

"We understand that receiving a bill later than expected can be frustrating and can make budgeting more difficult," Interim Public Utilities Director Hugh Ogle said in the county's update. "We want customers to know that we recognize the problem and are actively working to correct it."

The county says it is sorting issues by how directly they affect customers and handling the most direct ones first. It is also restoring the checks and balances in its billing practices. Because bills go out on fixed cycles, the fixes will show up gradually, with a goal of normal billing by the January 2027 cycle. The software project has also appeared on the Mayor and Commission agenda. Minutes from the August 4, 2026 meeting record a $46,807 transfer to the utility billing system and a $275,000 change order for professional services on the water utility software conversion.

What went up on July 1

The rate change will still be on the bill after the billing delay is fixed. The Mayor and Commission adopted the FY27 schedule of fees with the budget, effective July 1, 2026, for the fiscal year that runs through June 30, 2027. These are the single-family residential lines that changed:

Each water tier rose by roughly 10%. Sewer usage, which is billed on every gallon of water a household uses, rose by about 5%. Together, every 1,000 gallons billed at Tier 1 now costs $16.30 for water plus sewer. Before July 1, the same 1,000 gallons cost $15.20. That's an increase of a little more than 7% on the core of the bill, before the fixed fees.

Some account-level charges went up as well. The standard water deposit went from $50 to $75, and the schedule notes it can be higher depending on credit and payment history. The service fee went from $10 to $20, and the returned-payment fee went from $20 to $35. A household that opens a new water account in Athens-Clarke this year will see these charges before its first bill.

Why extra days don't push you into a higher tier

The county's guide to reading your water bill explains how the tiers handle a longer billing cycle. Residential billing is based on your Annual Average, and the bill shows it as an amount of gallons. You multiply that amount by the number of days in the billing cycle to get the Annual Average for that bill. The guide also says water usage charges can vary with the number of days in the cycle. So the Tier 1 allowance grows with the length of the bill. If your daily water use stayed normal, a longer cycle should add more gallons at your usual rate and should not push you into a higher tier.

Tiers 2 through 4 apply to use above your own Annual Average for that cycle. The FY27 schedule sets a minimum Annual Average of 3,000 gallons per month. A household's higher tiers depend on how its use compares with its own history, and the length of the bill doesn't change that comparison. Each bill also shows your water use for the current month and the past 12 months, along with your average, so you can check this yourself.

Running the numbers on a long bill

Here is an illustration. Take a hypothetical household whose use stays at its usual daily rate. It uses 6,000 gallons over a four-week cycle, and the same rate of use adds up to 9,000 gallons over six weeks. All of it bills at Tier 1. The figures below are usage charges for water plus sewer only, at the rates in the county's fee schedule.

This is how this fall's bills break down. Going from a four-week bill at the old rates to a six-week bill at the new rates adds $55.50 in usage charges. Most of that, $45.60, comes from the extra two weeks of water at the old price. The other $9.90 comes from the July 1 increase on those 9,000 gallons. When billing goes back to normal cycles, the extra weeks go away. The higher price per gallon stays.

Bills will also be uneven for a while. When billing works correctly, a long period covers more days and the next bill covers fewer, so over a year the household pays for the water it actually used. A six-week bill doesn't mean you used more water. It means you were billed for six weeks at once. The county says these corrections will appear across several billing cycles rather than all at once.

The part that stays after January

The late fee is the change most tied to the delay. Under the FY27 schedule, a late payment costs 15% of the amount due, up from 10%. On the hypothetical $146.70 in six-week usage charges above, 15% is about $22. Under the old 10% rate it would have been about $14.67. The fee is a percentage of the bill, so a larger bill means a larger late fee, and a bill that arrives later than expected leaves less time to pay it. The county's update doesn't mention any changes to late fees for affected accounts. Questions about a specific bill go to the county's Water Business Office at 706-613-3500.

The new customer portal has moved from December 2026 to late 2027. The county's goal is normal billing by the January 2027 cycle, so bills could be back on schedule about a year before the portal arrives.

Water use is under no extra restrictions right now. Georgia EPD declared a statewide Level 1 Drought Response on April 27, 2026 and kept it in place at its August 14, 2026 review. Level 1 adds no restrictions beyond the standard schedule, which allows general outdoor water use from 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. Athens-Clarke isn't on EPD's list of local variances. So what moves a household's bill this year is the length of the billing cycle, the new rates, and how its use compares with its own Annual Average.

This post is general information about published county rates, not legal, tax or financial advice. For questions about your own account, contact the Water Business Office.

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