The City of Portage la Prairie is moving closer to rectifying water billing issues for residents.

Revised bills for Area 1, south of Saskatchewan Ave., were sent out recently. Many bills had a consistent credit amount of about $31, and Waterworks Committee Chair councillor Wayne Wall acknowledges there was some confusion among recipients.

Many people took to social media to question why credit amounts were the same.

"It's because the error was in the pro-rating of basic numbers that weren't based on consumption," Coun. Wall says. "Everybody has some basic numbers (such as) recycling, solid waster numbers and so on, that don't change from month-to-month. But when we tried to pro-rate them there was some math errors in the program, and when those were corrected they resulted in that $31 credit."

Wall adds Area 2 revised bills, between Saskatchewan Ave. and the railway tracks, will be sent out in the coming weeks. He notes the new water meter reader system can also track irregularities at each individual meter.

"When (city staff) are looking at these bills and see something out of the ordinary, they're able to zero-in on an invidual meter now," Wall explains. "They can check the leak detector, and if there something showing up there, they can notify people they should be checking for toilet leaks and dripping taps."

"That's a nice feature of this whole new system."