BILLINGS — The city of Billings is looking to hire an independent auditor to examine recent high utility bills.
Tensions reached a boiling point Monday after the Billings City Council held a special work session to hear from Public Works as to why the bills were so high.
“I've told you for close to a week now that I think we need an audit, and I'm a bit frustrated that we can't actually vote on something tonight," said Ward 2 Billings City Council Member Jennifer Owen during the meeting.
Owen was vocal with her concerns at the meeting and did not back down Wednesday, expressing a desire in an interview with MTN News that the city needs to find a solution.
“We understand that the public needs to have confidence restored, and I believe that's only going to come through an independent audit of the system,” said Owen. “It's important to me that we look at the entire process start to finish both from that initial meter reading all the way into the generation of the bill to the customer. It could take a few months, but I think it's essential that we do it."
The increase in residents' monthly bills began after the city moved to a new billing system. Ratepayers did not see a bill in July, then saw a much larger bill in August that included two months of usage. In addition, rate increases of 7.8 percent for water and sewer kicked in at the same time, and stormwater fees were moved from property taxes to utility bills, meaning most ratepayers saw a 15.5 percent rate increase starting July 1, according to the city.
Now, the city is in those beginning steps to get an audit started.
City officials said Wednesday they have begun reaching out to multiple firms, and they believe they will need to hire two different organizations to do the analysis: one to review the billing and another to verify the accuracy of water meters. An audit cost has not been estimated.
However, Billings Public Works is still confident that their readings are correct.
“We still maintain that the meters are correct and the software is billing accurately. There's always those one-off human errors, but those are isolated, not an actual software or meter issue that we've found so far," said Deputy Director for Public Works Jennifer Duray. “About 95% of our customers have not complained about high bills, so most of our customers are continuing to pay as usual."
The city is still not planning on issuing late fees or water shutoffs. However, some people say they've received bills hundreds of dollars higher than normal, and they say they won't pay until they get a better explanation. Duray encouraged them to pay what they can.
“The 5% of people that are really worried that the bill is wrong, we would encourage them to still pay something, especially if they're someone who would have trouble paying it later if they don't pay a little bit at a time," said Duray. “We are encouraging people to pay a little bit, even though we're not requiring it right now, just for their sake."
Public Works also offers services to have meters checked for a fee, but officials say they have not found a large number of leaks that would result in higher bills.
“We've had a lot of those customers that think that they're using too much will insist that they haven't used the water. What our customer service team tends to do is say, 'Is it possible you have a leak?' Not necessarily telling people they have leaks, but suggesting it could be an option,” said Duray. “If they get a new meter, it actually usually increases the consumption slightly just because newer meters are more accurate. The older meters do decrease over time.”
The city has added 12 new people to a call center to answer a continued high volume of questions and lower wait times. An audit is expected to still take several months, meaning it could be a while before a solution is found.
“The scope of work for an independent audit that works is underway now and we should be seeing that in the coming days,” said Owen. “It's been a collaborative process to resolve a community problem, and I'm enormously grateful for the community's engagement as we try to work through an issue that I think everyone would agree has not gone the way we would want it to."
The Public Works Department can be reached by email at utilities@BillingsMT.gov or over the phone at 406-657-8315 for any questions regarding utility bills.
