As California looks to use water restrictions and fines to conserve more water during the drought, one city has already adopted a strict water policy with penalties that hurt residents in the pocket.

Amanda Bunte, water conservation representative for the City of Santa Cruz, joined Take Two to talk about how her city is giving residents an alternative course to cancel out their hefty water usage fines.

Residences throughout the city are assigned a maximum per-cycle amount of water that they can use without incurring a fine. Should a household use 10 percent more than its allotment, it would get a $25 fine. Should it exceed even that, the fine goes up to $50.

Bunte explained that these fines can rack up quickly. And while only 6 percent of Santa Cruz households have been fined for using more than their fair share of water, some offenders gotten slapped with penalties as steep as $4,400,

The goal, however, isn’t punishing consumers but educating them, and Bunte said the city has found success in offering a single, two-hour water school class in lieu of paying those fines.

“Most customers walk away pleased with the knowledge they’ve obtained with the class,” she said. “Overall, it’s been a very positive experience.”

And while one could make superficial comparisons to traffic school, don’t fret about passing a test at the end. “We have a brief 10-question quiz that we ask attendees to take, but we do not grade them individually,” Bunte explained. “Instead, we go over answers together, to help [attendees] retain the most important facts we want them to walk away with.”

Among those? Toilets. According to Bunte, most attendees seem surprised by how costly a leaky toilet can be. “Toilets can be a silent and continuous leak that can quickly add up,” she said.