New Columbia billing system blamed for faulty disconnect notices
One city official blamed a “hiccup” in the switch to a new billing system that led to several faulty utility disconnection notices.
ABC 17 News reported last week that some customers received the notices in error. The city admitted the mistake, and apologized. With a new billing system and software rolled out this month, Water & Light spokeswoman Connie Kacprowicz said the city is still trying to find and fix errors in the program.
The software, purchased through Advanced Utility for more than $1 million in 2014, failed to properly recognize customers using “budget billing,” Kacprowicz said. The billing department determines how much those customers owe in a year, and fixes monthly payments to whittle it down. The new system, Kacprowicz said, did not recognize those accounts, and flagged them as delinquent when applying a payment far less than what was on the books for them.
“What needed to happen is that a small flag needed to be put on there, so the system would understand the budget billing, so there’s always going to be a running total,” Kacprowicz said.
The city worked for the last 18 months to set up and test the system, Kacprowicz said, with some staff members working weekends on it. For several months, they ran both the old and new software systems in tandem as a test. Despite the time, effort and money put forth, she said some flaws would only become apparent when the system went “live.”
“We’re hoping that the rest of the month goes smoothly, and the transition over to the new bills will be as smooth as humanly possible,” Kacprowicz said. “But we certainly appreciate everyone’s patience during this period.”
The new bill features more detailed information regarding someone’s use of electricity and water. Kacprowicz said the new format, which includes bar graphs showing the usage, should provide greater transparency and explanation to customers on how they’re being charged. Columbia also charges sewer, trash and stormwater on its utility bills, which are not measured by use.
She encouraged anyone that received a disconnection notice to contact the city at 573-874-7380 or ucs@como.gov to find out whether or not it was legitimate.
