Fort Rucker Alabama
I recently wrote about on-post housing on FT Rucker and the mock utility billing. This post is an update to Fort Rucker Mock Utility Billing.
Picerne Military Housing, the managing company for on post housing on FT Rucker, held a town hall meeting on Thursday for the military residents to ask questions, discuss concerns and provide further information on the program. The meeting was held at Rucker-Picerne Partners Building located on Andrews Avenue FT Rucker, Alabama. Approximately 50 residents showed up to get the full details. Picerne Military Housing provided soft drinks and cookies upon entering.
Picerne's representative went into details about the reason for implementing the billing of utilities to the military families. #1 goal is to conserve / reduce energy. The Department of Defense has mandated a goal to cut energy consumption by 3% on ALL military installations by 2015. "We all have to do our part". The Soldiers Center Building (BLDG 5700) on Fort Rucker recently was evaluated. The onsite temperature was adjusted during the day and cut back during the evenings and weekends while it was closed, the savings total over $4000 per month.
Who and how Picerne will determine the billing was discussed in length. A third party who handles metering readings will be contracted to handle all the billing and readings of the meter. Residents are rest assured that "like homes" will be used to compare consumption (3 bedrooms with 3 bedrooms).
The programs is not to get residents upset or scared of the program, but instead to make military residents become more aware of your energy consumption. The program will begin on November 1st with a MOCK bill. This MOCK billing period is intended to last for about 6 months. No confirmed dates have been set, but "sometime in May of 2009" was mentioned for the actual billing process to begin. The Mock Billing is to begin in Allen Heights and will include the new construction in Munson Heights.
Some residents were upset with the new program. Concerns such as "BAH (basic housing allowance) is suppose to cover utilities, homes that are not energy efficient and Picerne making a profit from the BAH and now charging for utilities. One resident questioned if conserving energy is so important than why are they not installing solar panels. Most of the answers from the representatives referred back to "mandated by Congress", "the top 10% and bottom 10% will be dropped, then we will get a baseline from the remaining 80%", "we don't have the answers to that" and "we will discuss that at our next meeting".
After attending the town hall meeting, the only new information that I had was the MOCK billing will be for a period of 6 months. I am anxious to see the first mock bill however at the same time nervous that we might actually be paying extra for our energy consumption.
Fort Rucker on post housing / Fort Rucker Picerne
Fort Rucker Relocation / Fort Rucker housing / Military Housing
Military Spouse Relocation Specialist
authored by: Michelle Tucker Fort Rucker Real Estate
Copyright 2008. All Rights Reserved. Michelle Tucker
Original post: www.activerain.com
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