The Saxonburg Area Authority has the right to expect on-time payment of bills. Customers should manage their household budgets to avoid making late payments.

That said, there are situations in which bills do fall into arrears. All utilities, banks and other companies deal with that and have approved processes in place to address the situations.

The Saxonburg authority is no exception.

However, in Saxonburg's case, a question has surfaced, in light of a couple of recent shut-offs. That question is whether the authority is being unreasonable and heavy-handed in the fees it charges for termination of sewage service and reconnecting service.

The authority should demonstrate to customers that it really does cost the authority $2,430 to discontinue service and the same amount to reconnect it. Service terminations and reconnections should not be a source of windfall profits for the authority.

If people are having trouble paying their basic sewage-service bill, it's difficult to fathom the authority believing they'll be able to pay the nearly $5,000 in question.

Service shut-offs should require reimbursement for the authority's actual expenses plus possibly a reasonable penalty. Shut-off and reconnect charges that would result in longstanding liens seem counterproductive to the authority's primary motive, which is to receive prompt payments for service.

It's understandable that the disconnect/reconnect process is more involved for sewage service than for water service. Water shut-offs usually don't involve digging or, if they do, only minor digging to expose the shut-off valve.

To discontinue sewage service, the authority must dig up the hookup to the main line. After the disconnect, the line is capped. Likewise, reconnecting service also requires digging, and then uncapping of the line.

But whether the authority actually incurs a cost of $2,430 for each of those processes — or an amount anywhere near that figure — is reasonable to question.

To its credit, the authority has what seems to be a reasonable approach for handling delinquent accounts. In addition to notice of bills not paid, four service termination notices are sent to the delinquent customer before that drastic action actually is carried out.

Paul Cornetti, the authority's interim manager, said, "The authority does feel bad about the shut-offs. It is necessary for us to enforce the shutoffs to preserve the entire customer base from paying for service to those not paying for it."

There's nothing wrong with that logic, but an approach that seems hellbent on worsening a situation for certain customers, rather than helping those customers overcome their delinquent status, should be the basis for rethinking.

The authority should provide to its customers an accurate cost breakdown of the disconnect/reconnect process. If it cannot prove that such high fees are justified based on actual costs, the fees should be reduced.

The current fees, fair or not, are the recipe for liens or, worse, a sheriff's sale of the property. Rightly or wrongly, they're also the basis for customer opinion that the authority is more comfortable with heavy-handedness than with helping customers to work through their issues and payment problems.

Everyone should pay their bills, but customers' circumstances differ.

On the surface, the shut-off/reconnect fees don't acknowledge that reality.