Lilly Borough Water Department

Review: Due to a 2-1/2 year long custody battle for my granddaughter and the lawyer fees involved, I fell 2-3 months behind in my water authority bill last year. I went to a Lilly Water Authority meeting and explained my situation to them. We agreed to pay our monthly bill + $50.00 every month and they would not charge us with the $50.00/ month penalties. One of the members put a amendment to the deal that if we failed to make even one payment the deal would be off and all the penalties, $755.00 + at the time, would be put back on to the bill. With the lawyer bills, all of my utilities and bills have got behind and I have made a few mistakes in my checkbook and bounced 2 checks to the water authority. So they thru the penalties back on ( over $900.00 ) and threatened to turn the water off to my home. I went to our church, another local church, catholic charities, Lutheran ministries, Ebensburg Magisterium, St. Vincent DePaul, and other charities for help with the bill several times and they did help. Unfortunately the water authority takes all the charities moneys and applies them to the penalties, which leaves my account in turn off mode. It seems like such a racket that the local Lutheran minister walked his last donation to me, over to the water authority to tell them to put the donation on my bill and not the penalties. Several of the local charities have now found out about Lilly Water Authority's actions with donations toward water bills. Some of the charities have stopped helping customers of the water authority with their past due accounts because of the system the authority has in place. I am going to attend the next meeting of the water authority Nov.5,2014 and I am going to try to get it settled, but with this penalty scheme of the authority's I may never get my bill caught up! Can you help me anyway at all. Thank you.Desired Settlement: I would like all the money I have paid and the charities have paid in my name to got towards the un-penalized part of my water account. It would nice to also have the water authority to change this scheme they have going on with the penalties on water bills and the moneys being put towards the penalties not the bill.