Board member Steve Sisolak said, "I'm here to say I made a mistake."

The board corrected that mistake. They gave business owners and charities a fifty-percent credit on the fees they've already collected associated with fire lines. Those are water meters hooked up to fire sprinkler systems and fire hydrants.

Rates were raised on all meter sizes in May to pay for projects to bring water into the valley from Lake Mead. The bigger the meter.. the bigger the fee.

In some cases, non-profits and small businesses saw their water bills quadruple. The fees helped bring in about $44 million dollars into a rate stabilization fund. The credit, which amounts to a refund, is coming from that fund.

Business owner Larry Britz says, "It's a start."

The refund is only for the next three years. Britz says he hopes a citizens committee can find a way to share the pain before a $360 million dollar bill to pay for infrastructure comes due. Britz says, "If you have to go ahead and raise residential a dollar month and put the into your fund for reserves; that would help a lot."

Water authority general manager Pat Mulroy says homeowners who saw fees increase by five dollars and just over nineteen dollars, may eventually be forced to pay more.

Mulroy says, "At the end of the day we have a mortgage payment to make. And so, if we're not just using this extra revenue that we've been collecting, and we have to do more in terms of reducing rates, somebody else's rates have to go up because the bank still wants to be paid."

The change only applies to water customers with fees connected to fire meters. It must be approved by the Water District, Henderson and North Las Vegas.

The credit would go into effect in August. Customers would see it on their bills in September.

Keep it tuned to Action News.