Frustrated and upset Amarillo citizens are going to social media and calling city representatives over City of Amarillo utility water bills that are way higher than normal.
One such customer with an off-kilter bill tried to call the City of Amarillo water department and was told that there were 145 calls ahead of them. Others are seeing their water rates skyrocket, with a usage of 100,000 gallons when it is normally 4,000.
Mayor Cole Stanley said, “We have multiple things going on. Some of the customers are seeing that the dates have an extended period of time, so they have a longer billing cycle than normal.”
“Then, what looks like to me to be a coding error somewhere between the metering system and new software billing system software could be occurring,” he said. Stanley said he believes that they are not communicating the way they previously were.
“I had one lady who called who said she had 11,000 gallons of water that went to 92,000,” he said. “that’s obviously not a toilet running. We’re just apologizing to customers and telling them not to panic.
“We understand and we’re working on it. Some of them I’m advising to pay whatever the previous month was to stay in good standing,” Stanley advised.
The city recently transitioned to a new utility billing system in late March / early April.
On May 7, the city announced due to the high volume of inquiries, it had launched a new Utility Billing Request Form for customers needing account review or follow-up assistance online. Customers may still contact Utility Billing in person at City Hall (623 S. Johnson St.) during normal business hours, by phone at 806-378-3030 or by email at waterbill@amarillo.gov .
Councilmember Les Simpson said Monday in a Facebook post that at Tuesday’s meeting of the Amarillo City Council, he would request the topic be placed on a future council agenda as soon as possible. He said it was too late to add it to this week’s agenda, due to Open Meetings Act requirements.
Stanley said that they’ve told everyone that there is a 60-day grace period. Most of the errors seem to be a communication error between the old metering system and the new billing system, he said.
The mayor said he has reached out to the consultant, and he said that he had seen this happen in other cities but wanted to assure the public that it would be corrected.
“If the computer was communicating to a different computer and older software, the code would send a different pricing index. If that wasn’t calibrated or adjusted with new billings, that could happen,” Stanley said.
The mayor said he was trying to reassure people that they are not going to bill them for water they didn’t get and they would make it right.
“We appreciate our customers,” he said. “We’re not going to bill them in excess and we will fix it, but it will probably to a week or two to figure out what we’re up against.”
This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: What’s going on with our City of Amarillo water bills?
Reporting by Nell Williams, Amarillo Globe-News / Amarillo Globe-News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
