Houston County refunding $200K in old water deposits

Nearly 5,000 customers with accounts before 2001 will see credits on their next bill

PERRY, Georgia  (41NBC/WMGT) – Houston County will refund nearly $200,000 in water deposit credits to nearly 5,000 customers from accounts opened before 2001.  

The County commission approved the plan to return deposits collected more than 20 years ago, when Houston County required a deposit to open a residential water account. Houston County utility director Terry Dietsch says as far as refunds customers deposits will be credited to their next billing cycle. 

“Those people that had deposits just sitting in an account on hold, unless they closed their account or moved away, then they were credited at that time,” said Dietsch. “So, we’re in the process of doing a software upgrade for our utility billing and we’ve had some changes with our banks for the county.”

Dietsch says this refund program coincides with an upgrade to the county’s utility billing system, which is overdue.