City of Merced Finance Department – Utility Billing / Public Works Water Division
City of Merced
Population reference
98,030 people in the City’s 2025 Urban Water Management Plan service-area population table; the Water Division also describes service to more than 89,000 citizens, more than 25,000 water meters, and more than 25,000 service connections.
Billing detail
Broad public detail found
Official destination
Open provider website ↗Provider-specific findings
Billing and account research from public material
Provider-specific research notes are displayed separately from fields that contain only an unavailable-information marker. Read qualifiers in each note and verify current account terms with the provider.
- Billing frequency
- Monthly. The City states that approximately 20,000 utility customers are billed monthly for water, sewer, and garbage services.
- Rate structure
- Both metered and flat water rate structures are authorized in the Merced Municipal Code: Title 15 section 15.36.070 contains metered-water rates and section 15.36.050 contains flat-water rates. The public utility-billing page references those code sections but does not render the current 2026 dollar table; no separate public drought-tier table was exposed in the accessible pages.
- Wastewater and sewer calculation
- The City identifies separate single-family, multi-family, and commercial sewer schedules in Municipal Code Title 15 sections 15.12.030, 15.12.040, and 15.12.070. The accessible 2026 billing page does not expose the current rates or state a winter-average, clean-water-percentage, or flat sewer calculation, so the exact residential wastewater formula is not publicly documented pending the code table.
- Meter reading
- Merced operates approximately 25,000 water meters and provides the Eye On Water customer usage platform through its water-meter information resources; the current accessible page does not expose the hardware vendor or confirm AMR versus two-way AMI. The City’s water system uses real-time SCADA monitoring for system pressure and motor run times, but that SCADA system should not be conflated with residential meter-read technology. Exact meter-read schedule is not publicly documented.
- New-account deposit
- Renters must bring a rental or lease agreement, photo ID, and a three-month deposit to the Utility Billing office to start service. The current page does not publish a universal dollar amount because the deposit is based on three months of the account’s applicable service charges; no public credit-check waiver is described.
- Activation or transfer fee
- No separate activation or transfer fee is published on the current utility-billing page. To start service, call (209) 385-6841; renters must provide a lease/rental agreement, photo ID, and the three-month deposit. The public page does not state a universal owner transfer fee or standard service-on time.
Context, not a score
How documentation coverage compares
This profile
86%
overview fields with research notes
California
67%
records with any overview detail
National index
50%
records with any overview detail
Coverage measures what this directory documented. It does not measure service quality, affordability, or regulatory compliance.
Research record
Broad public detail found
6 of 7 fields in this section contain provider-specific public detail in dataset August 1, 2026.
Documented
86%
Details not confirmed in the reviewed public material
- Residential cost reference
“Not confirmed” means the directory did not identify a dependable public statement. It does not mean the provider has no policy or option.
Primary verification routes
- City of Merced Finance Department – Utility Billing / Public Works Water Division public website ↗
Provider-controlled destination used to confirm current customer instructions.
- csd.ca.gov reference ↗
Public URL preserved in the compiled record. Confirm its publisher, date, and applicability before relying on it.
- EPA Safe Drinking Water Information System ↗
Federal background on public water-system records and their limitations.