BILLINGS — A completed Billings water audit released Monday found that the city isn't at fault for the abnormally high bills.
The results came after months of confusion, beginning early last summer when the city had trouble changing to a different billing software.
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Those initial delays were caused by inaccuracies found in about 15,000 of the city's total 40,000 bills. When the bills were released at the end of the summer, the charges spanned over three months, creating a confusing loop.
"We know that this has cost us in credibility and trust and customer confidence," City Administrator Chris Kukulski said Monday morning.
The city is hoping the results of the audit — which was done by SL-serco, Inc. — can alleviate concerns. David Allen with Sl-serco said that there were things the city could have done better, though the metering and billing was accurate.
"When we started, we found thousands of inaccurate bills," Allen said. "In every occurrence, those early bills were righted by the city."
That doesn't mean residents are taking the news well. Michael Uhrich said he had extremely large water bills at both his home and business.
"Something is very wrong," Uhrich, who owns Carter's Brewey in downtown Billings, said. "It's frustrating. There's no transparency."
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Uhrich said that both of his bills were about 600% more than they typically have been in years past. He said that big of a difference was impossible to ignore.
"A small increase like seven percent or eight percent, not a big deal," Uhrich said. "But when I get billed for 600 percent, that's a big discrepancy. I have to question that."
Uhrich said he called the public works department in September and explained the situation. He claims that they told them they'd reach out and never did, which is a big reason why he's annoyed by the results.
"It just doesn't feel like there's any accountability or acceptance of fault," Uhrich said.
Kukulski did admit some things he wished the city had done differently. Among them, he wishes they had hired a third-party IT company to help facilitate the change of software. He admitted that when there were inaccurate early bills, they should've delayed the kick-off of the software to next year rather than delaying bills a couple months.
"We learned the hard way that that's an investment that is a must," Kukulski said.
Throughout this process, there haven't been any penalties for late fees. Kukulski said that will continue to be the case and that the city will work with people on setting up a payment plan.
"We will work with those customers on payment plans that work for them," Kukulski said. "Our goal is absolutely to not shut anybody off."
Kukulski advised anyone who is still convinced their bill is inaccurate should reach out to public works and walk through the usage with them.
Read the full audit:
