FAQs

Please call Public Utilities – Refuse Division at (559) 324-2604.

Utility bills for single family residences include all services such as water, refuse, street sweeping, sewer charges, recycling and green waste. All customers are charged a minimum per dwelling unit charge of $25.36. Your bill goes out every two months and all the charges stay the same with the exception of water usage which is billed at a specified rate per every thousand gallons used. As your water use goes up, charges are tiered. The more water you use the higher the water charges. The tiers and corresponding rates are listed below:

Dwelling Unit Charge
$25.36
1 – 23,000 gallons
$1.04 per thousand gallons
23,000 – 40,000 gallons   
$1.73 per thousand gallons
Over 40,000 gallons       
$2.12 per thousand gallons 

For example, if you used 89,000 gallons it would be calculated as follows:

Dwelling Unit Charge

$25.36
23,000 gallons
23,000 x 1.04 =  
21.16
17,000 gallons
40,000 – 23,000 = 17,000 x 1.73 =   
26.01
49,000 gallons
49,000 x 2.12 = 
92.12
89,000 gallons 
Total water charge 
$161.81

Meters are usually read during the first 10 days of the month of the billing date. For example, if your bill had a billing date of 07/31/10, then your meter would have been read during the first 10 days of July. The bill that you would receive at the beginning of August would be for actual water use from the first few days in May to the first few days in July. If you start cutting back on water usage after those first few days in July, you may not see lower bills until your bill in September. 

Many times neighbors like to get together to compare utility bills but this comparison does not reflect what may occur in your household. People will have different watering preferences and habits. Your neighbors may have fewer people in their households or different watering habits than your household may have. A better comparison would be using your own prior year’s usage and comparing it to this year’s usage. 

The Tarpey area is a special water district that the City of Clovis supplies water to. There are two types of water customers in Tarpey, unmetered and metered. The unmetered customers are billed in advance for their water service and the amount is determined by the total consumption of water by unmetered customers in that area divided by the number of unmetered customers.  If you and your neighbor don’t have a meter, your bills will be the same even though you might not have the same amount of people in your households or the same watering habits. Metered customers are billed for water the same as customers inside the city limits of Clovis. If you own a home in the Tarpey area and are interested in installing a water meter you can call (559) 324-2130 to find out more information. 

You can pay by phone or online through Paymentus. You can also pay for your utility bill at City Hall. If you are paying in person, you can come into City Hall to pay by cash, check, or credit card during the hours of 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. You can also drop your payment into any one of the three drop boxes located outside of City Hall. One is located in front of City Hall on Fifth Street at the curb and the other is located directly in back of City Hall on the sidewalk. Make sure you include the payment stub with your payment. If you don’t have the payment stub you can still drop your payment in the drop box if you have the account number or service address written on your check or money order. For your safety, please do not put cash in any of the drop boxes. Payments received in the drop box are given same day credit even if received after 4:30 p.m. For example: if a payment is due on Friday and you cannot make it to the Finance Department before 4:30 p.m., then you can drop your payment in the drop box anytime before the office opens on the next business day and your payment will not be late.

You can easily start or stop service by filling out an online form (click here to Start or click here to Stop). You can also start or stop service 24/7 by calling (559) 324-2115 and choosing the option to start or stop service. If you are doing both you will need to make two phone calls to do so, one to start and one to stop service. 

Often bills that seem to be increasingly higher can be the result of a leak. While the City of Clovis is always willing to help you better understand your water usage, the City of Clovis is unable to detect leaks for you. Before you call a plumber, you may want to take a few simple steps to see if you actually have a leak. 

• Locate your meter. Most meters are located in the sidewalk in front of the house in a concrete box with a metal lid on it that reads “WATER,” “METER” or both.
• Lift up the lid and take a look at your meter. You might want to take a rag with you to wipe off the meter so you can see it clearly. It does get very dusty and dirty between readings. Have a pencil and paper ready and write down all the numbers that are on the meter.
• Don’t use any water inside or outside of the house for at least an hour or more. Make sure that you do this during a time when automatic sprinklers aren’t going off or people in the house aren’t going to use the water. After an hour or so has passed go back and read the meter and write down all the numbers again. 

If any of the numbers have changed, this would indicate that you have a leak somewhere on your property and you may want to start looking for it as leaks tend to get worse over time.