With changes — even good ones — comes some pain. Marion utility customers may experience some pain in the wallet after new electric meters are installed.

According to city administrator Doug Kjellin, as meters are replaced, the final reading of the old meter is entered as the usage to be billed.

“It seems like a small detail,” Kjellin said Monday, “but when a meter gets replaced later in a month, the bill may reflect two or three more weeks of usage, which results in a larger-than-normal bill.”

But the good news is the customer’s bill the following month should be considerably less because there will be fewer weeks being billed.

It will take two billing cycles to get residential customers’ bills “back to normal,” Kjellin said.

With the meters on a radio-read system, the monthly readings will be more consistent. However, some households may see slight increases in usage because the old meters — most averaging 45 years old — may have slowed down and were not metering correctly.

Proper metering will allow the city to efficiently distribute utility costs fairly to all residents, Kjellin said.

For more information, contact Kjellin at the city office, (620) 382-3703.

Kjellin has a blog at the city’s website, http://www.marionks.org.