Changes to the City of Lawton's Billing Cycle

Published November 15, 2022

Caitlin Gatlin | Communications & Marketing Manager

UPDATE:

If a customer is unsure when they will receive their bill, they can visit this link: https://colgis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=af87853a40c24c828e6e914346e44f68

ORIGINAL STORY:

Changes are coming to the City of Lawton’s billing cycles come January. Instead of 20 billing cycles a month, we are cutting it down to four.

”We have to run a set of bills every single day as part of our daily work," Finance Director, Joe Don Dunham.

That will be a thing of the past starting January 1, 2023, when the Finance Department will send out bills one day a week, instead of five.

”We’ve gone through some analysis to make the impact to the customer as little as it can possibly be," Dunham said.

To help citizens understand when to expect their utility bill, the new schedule will run alongside the City’s bulk pick up schedule.

So if you live in Area 1, expect your bill during the first week of the month. Citizens in Area 2 will have their bills the second week of the month. Area 3 can I expect their bills the third week, and finally, citizens in Area 4 will get bills in the mail during the last week of the month.

”There will be some fluctuations in due days, but it shouldn’t be drastic," said Dunham.

That fluctuation may be as little as a customer receiving two bills in the same month, which will only happen once and is expected to be few and far between. And because staff isn’t spending their entire day sending out bills, they’ll have more time to be more thorough in their work.

”In the long run, the customer should receive a more accurate bill because we have the opportunity to check bills more in depth and notify customers if we think something is wrong," said Dunham.

As a reminder, regardless of when you get your bill, if it is not paid in full within 20 days after its due date, your service will be discontinued.

This change is coming from a 2020 Novak Report recommendation, that stated freeing up more time will help the finance department provide better customer service and be more efficient. Once again, this isn’t happening until January 1st. We will be sending out reminders ahead of the change.

But if you have any questions, please contact our Finance Department at (580) 581-3328 or our Utility Services Department at (580) 581-3308.