The City of Santa Clara is making several changes in its billing and credit policies for all municipal utilities, effective May 1, 2002. The changes in rules and regulations deal primarily with late payment penalties and shutoff procedures for non-payment. The City appreciates residents and businesses who continue to pay their utility bills on time, helping the City to keep processing costs at reasonable levels.

The new policies were created to ensure uniformity of credit requirements and billing among all City of Santa Clara utilities -- Electric (Silicon Valley Power), Water & Sewer, and other utility services. Significant among the new rules is a shortened amount of time between payment delinquency and shutoff of service. These rules will better protect the City from taking on unnecessary financial burden when a customer is in financial difficulty and cannot make payment.

Stricter rules and enforcement of late payment or non-payment of bills, as well as the new credit requirements, will help the utilities to control costs and keep rates low for everyone. Note: Customers who continue to make payments on time are not affected by these changes.

The new regulations are available online in Silicon Valley Power's website . For more information call Municipal Services at 615-2300.