SALEM — The utilities commission discussed updates to its billing policy for rental units in its February meeting.

In recent months there has been a push to shift water and sewer billing for rental properties within the city from tenants to the property owner’s account. The commissioners have argued that such a change was necessary to address issues caused when a property has multiple sub-units but only a single shut-off valve such as when one tenant pays their water bill and the other fails to do so.

Utilities Superintendent Butch Donnalley said that he, Assistant Superintendent Chad Hess, Accounts Manager Samantha Loper, and Water Distribution General Foreman Brian Hall had met to discuss the best way to implement such a policy change and determined that with the volume of rentals in the city it would be best to implement a phased roll out.

“Since there’s so many you can’t do it all overnight, you would start out for the first year by just doing properties that cause problems with multiple dwellings but only one shut-off outside. That would attack the bulk of our problem and after we get those done, we can re-evaluate and see if we need to,” said Donnalley.

Utilities Commission Chairman Bob Hodgson asked how the phased approach would affect the city’s ability to write an ordinance enforcing the change, and Donnalley said that he’d confirmed with City Law Director Brooke Zellers that the ordinance could be written to address only the problem properties and be updated later if necessary. Commissioner Kyle Cranmer suggested that any ordinance also specify that any new properties being added to the sewer and water systems be required to put the account for the property in the owner’s name rather than the tenants.

“As new [properties] come in, we change them on a rolling basis, that way they just start to happen, there’s not that many long-term tenants,” said Cranmer.

Hodgson also suggested that the ordinance would require a grace period giving property owners time to make the change, and Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi Dickey suggested that the ordinance could draw from a similar one previously passed in Lisbon.

It was ultimately decided that more discussion was needed to refine the parameters before having an ordinance drafted by Zellers, and Hodgson suspected Cranmer “spearhead” that process due to his experience owning rentals, which he and Commissioner Randall Malmsberry lack.

Hodgson also said that he had noticed an increased frequency in the number of water line breaks recently and requested the department’s officials to create an ordered list of items in need of maintenance so that they can be properly prioritized and addressed.

“From the commission’s standpoint I think it would be good if each of you made, for lack of a better word a birthday list of what you would want to do if we could first, second, third, so we have an idea of what’s out there we need to do and we can start attacking some of these things,” said Hodgson.

Following an executive session for the discussion of ongoing negotiations, the commission voted unanimously to approve a 3% wage increase for the department’s non-bargaining employees, retroactive to Jan. 1. Hodgson explained that the annual wage-adjustment for the department’s non-bargaining employees had been unintentionally missed when its union employees received their pay rise at the beginning of the year.

The utilities commission will meet next at 3 p.m. March 20.