New water billing system causes concerns for Colorado city
Residents of the City of Englewood expressed confusion and concern due to delays and price changes in their water bills. After the city transitioned to a new billing system earlier this year some customers are paying more, others have seen their bills decrease and some haven't been able to access their bills online.
Chris Beasley has lived in a small home in Englewood for five years and began noticing some of the issues over the summer.
"It just doesn't add up. I probably paid the city over $1,000 since July," said Beasley. "It's not like we have a huge mansion or a swimming pool in the backyard or something."
He says now, his water bill is bigger than it's ever been. A March bill from this year shows he owed just over $80, while a September bill shows he owed just over $300.
Beasley also said he didn't get a bill for about a month during the summer, and at one point, also couldn't access the website to pay his bill online. So, he began paying small sums of $50 or $100 every few weeks to get his bills down.
Pieter Van Ry is the director of Englewood Utilities and South Platte Renew. He said because of decades of deferred maintenance, the City of Englewood was working to modernize utilities, including replacing water meters and transitioning to a new billing system in July.
"Immediately once we started the rollout, there were things that worked in the testing environment that once we rolled it out, they started to not work," said Van Ry. "There were glitches and problems with the software."
Van Ry said when the transition happened, the payment portal also went down, and residents were asked to mail in their payments or drop them off with the city. That issue was quickly resolved, but other challenges continued.
"The ongoing challenge has been integrating the new meter data into the billing system," said Van Ry.
Van Ry said some customers have been billed for zero water usage, while others have been billed for several months of usage, and the water bills have not accurately reflected how much water people are using.
"If you're a customer, you're just seeing the numbers changing and it's hard to see how much water you're using," said Van Ry.
"We understand that this system is causing our customers frustration so we want to make sure we can minimize any further complication," Van Ry added. "We are frustrated too because the rollout did not go as planned or promised."
Van Ry said there were also delays in issuing bills, so the city has suspended late fees and will not shut off anyone's water. He also encouraged residents to contact the city if they have questions about their bills.
"If they feel like there is something that is wrong on their bill, we want to make sure that we work with them to make sure that bill is right," said Van Ry.
Meanwhile, Beasley is still questioning how accurate his water bills have been.
"It's just frustrating because it's a lot of money for water and we can't really tell what these bills are for and why they're so high," said Beasley. "I just hope to get the bill back normal, and maybe even less."
Van Ry said the city is still working with the software provider to resolve the issue. He said he's been told that January's water bills should accurately reflect people's water usage, and the information will be represented correctly.
