NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) - Tonight, our Verify team looked into levelized-billing, a system that's meant to help utility customers avoid surprises and big bills by evening out monthly bills.
But one North Little Rock woman is confused, left wondering if what it truly means. Now, she's asked exactly how it works and we verify.
"I would have $375, $400 bills and about $100 in the winter because I do have gas," Leann Pruett, a North Little Rock resident, said.
She said each summer she dreaded opening her monthly electric bill.
"So I decided to go on levelized just to try to even out those summer months when those bills were so high," she said.
It worked and Pruett took to Facebook to tell her friends how helpful it was.
"I had a friend who commented, 'Well you might want to be careful because if you ever leave them, disconnect your service, you're gonna owe a balance,'" Pruett said.
To verify, we contacted both North Little Rock Electric and Entergy Arkansas.
Pruett's friend told her it was Entergy who said she owed a balance, so we took her concern directly to Entergy spokeswoman Kerri Case.
"Level billing is a way we can provide our customers a little predictability about their bill," Case said.
To get answers, Case first says it's important to understand how levelized billing works. Entergy takes an average of your past 12 months of usage and you pay about the same each month.
"The way it works is on your low usage months you're paying a little bit of extra and you're building up a credit, so that on those high usage months you're using against that credit," she said.
Case did confirm that a customer could owe money on their final bill if they use levelized billing. It's possible if you stop service during a high usage month. However, it's also possible to receive a check or refund if you stop service during a low usage cycle.
"You still pay the same amount. So depending on when you final that bill, you could have a credit and you get a check or you could have a balance and you would owe money," Case said.
North Little Rock Electric spokesman also verified this could be true for its customers, but said levelized billing "doesn't involve any stored up payments or 'savings.' It's simply a way to avoid large swings in higher or lower electric bills."
Levelized billing is completely optional. Call your utility service to learn more.
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