SAN DIEGO (NEWS 8) – At the start of this year many viewers contacted News 8 after noticing unusually high monthly water bills. Some bills had reached in the hundreds of dollars, and in some cases, even in the thousands of dollars.
On Thursday, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer called for "sweeping reform" within the Public Utilities Department following widespread complaints of inaccurate water billing starting from late 2017 into 2018.
In January 2018, Michael Vogel with the Public Utility Department, PUD, told News 8 the increase in concerns was related to the fact that a previous billing cycle had been ten days longer than normal. He also said that in some cases high water bills were the result of customers using more water. Vogel insisted the meters themselves were “absolutely accurate.”
Soon thereafter, customers sent News 8 photographs of dirt-covered meters as proof the City of San Diego had not been checking or maintaining the meters – possibly leading to inaccurate water usage readings.
In one case, a woman living in Kensington saw her water bill spike from $165 (in March of 2017) to $6,000 in January of 2018. PUD contended she had been using high amounts of water. When PUD sent someone to check her property, the woman claimed they did not find anything out of the ordinary.
At the end of January 2018, five days after News 8 originally reported on the problem, PUD continued to insist its water meters were working correctly. At the same time, San Diego District 6 Councilmember Chris Cate launched an investigation after his office became inundated with calls. He also sent a memo to PUD demanding answers and asked them to participate in a public forum.
On January 30th, 2018, San Diego’s mayor office confirmed to News 8 that PUD had launched its own investigation, despite stating their meters were working fine and that high water bills were a result of high water use and/ or possible leaks.
Following in Cate’s steps, City Council President Barbara Bry announced she would call for a PUD audit and the City of San Diego’s auditor agreed. At the time she told News 8, “My office is committed to helping San Diego ratepayers resolve their cases and discovering the reasons for these recent water bill spikes.”
By February 2018, and after Mayor Kevin Faulconer directed PUD to investigate claims, Vogel said the department had adjusted customers' bills or, in some cases, had explained why their bills had been so high.
PUD’s explanation for high water bills were:
- A rate increase of 6.9 percent that took effect in August
- A one-time billing schedule change that extended the normal 60-day billing period by up to 70 days for November and December
- Warmer winter months
- Meter reading inconsistencies, which have already been corrected
- Leaks
PUD’s explanation did not satisfy many customers. Viewers continued to send News 8 photos of scratched, cloudy and dirty meters with numbers that were unreadable. PUD responded by saying it was not uncommon for meters to get dirty.
On Feburary 3, 2018, Mayor Faulconer said, "San Diegans need to be able to trust that their bills are correct -- and that every cent they pay goes to ensuring we have safe, reliable water." He also added, "I've directed our Public Utilities Department to review every complaint to ensure that nobody is being overcharged and to correct any mistakes immediately."
A few days later, after an internal review, PUD found there were "misread water meters" that resulted in more than 300 customers being incorrectly overcharged for their water usage during the November-December billing period. PUD's director, Vic Baines, at the time declined to say how it had happened or if it was intentional, but the review found that the issues occurred in "concentrated areas due to human error."
That PUD review reportedly found a pattern of misread water meters in parts of Carmel Valley, Mira Mesa, Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Peñasquitos. A review of more than 3,000 meters in those areas identified 343 had been misread.
The City of San Diego called it an isolated incident, but added that new accountability measures would follow.
By the time the forum had taken place, a team of six auditors had been assigned to review billing procedures and determine what, if any, the role smart meter technology played in billing inaccuracies.
"We need the results and recommendations of this audit to come as quickly as possible, so we can act on any of those recommendations," said Mayor Faulconer at the time.
Over a month after News 8 first reported customers were receiving high water bills, Councilman David Alvarez called on a public hearing with the PUD to give customers affected by the high water bills an update. San Diego Public Utilities Director, Vic Bianes testified in front of the city's environment committee and detailed how the department has handled hundreds of high water bill complaints, and what they were doing to figure out the cause.
"We sincerely apologize to all customers affected by this situation. You have my word and that of my team that we are doing everything we can to correct this challenging situation," he said.
By March, PUD had doubled its call center staff and extended hours. They had already issued refunds. The average of those refunds were $500, and the highest refund reported was $11,000. Still, PUD continued to insist that high water bills were a result of related leaks, water rate increases - and in an isolated incident involving nearly 350 customers - human error.
Following the public hearing, PUD held four public meetings at which customers could sit down with representatives to discuss their bills.
By April 2018, the City of San Diego unveiled new water meter testing equipment. The system was mostly automated, which meant employees no longer had to watch dials move or manually stop the machine.
Tom Howard with the PUD claimed, "The degree of accuracy, the precision - it's just the next level in the industry for testing water meters." City officials purchased the Mars system long before hundreds of San Diego residents started questioning their high bills, but the installation was sped up in light of the controversy.
In July, News 8 put in a request to find out more about the ongoing audit, however, the information received left many unanswered questions. News 8 filed a public records request and on Tuesday, the documents that were received did not answer the question about how the overcharges happened.
According to the documents, "The public interest in the nondisclosure of personal identifying information clearly outweighs the public interest in disclosure." When pressed on the above point, a city official in a statement said: [The human error] "Demonstrated a trend on routes of one individual meter reader."
According to the audit released Thursday, reports by City Auditor Eduardo Luna's office and business consulting firm West Monroe Partners found the following causes for the high water bills:
- Errors from meter readers
- Lack of oversight and insufficient quality control led to billing complaints
- In addition to scheduled rate increases, higher water use after drought restrictions were lifted
- Longer billing cycle between September and December.
Though only a "very small percentage" of bills had to be adjusted after being received by a customer -- one-fifth of a percent -- Faulconer called for the immediate implementation of 18 auditor-recommended reforms related to strengthening quality control and human meter reader oversight; proactively analyzing billing, water use and call volume data; and improving public communications and customer service attitudes.
"Percentages don't matter if you are the one that is overbilled -- even one wrong bill is too many," Faulconer said. "...The department needs to rebuild the trust that has been lost."
Overall, most recommendations are expected to be implemented by Jan. 1, according to the city.
Luna's audit analyzed 1.3 million water bills from 2017, and found that roughly 21,000 bills, 1.6 percent, showed double or more than double the previous billing period's usage. That doesn't mean customers were incorrectly billed.
Overall, the utilities department flagged 57,117 potentially anomalous bills for additional review, adjusted 18,728 bills before they were sent to customers and another 2,750 after customers received an incorrect bill.
Luna's audit found that human error caused the largest amount of incorrect bills.
Of the department's 36 meter readers, 10 were responsible for more than half the readings corrected before billing and 71 percent of re-billings for 2017.
According to Faulconer, meter readers need to be more accurate, supervisors need to be more attentive and management needs to provide better training and tools to ensure accurate billing.
Recommendations from the recently completed audits include:
- Proactive customer outreach regarding water use, conservation efforts, advanced notice of billing cycle and rate changes
- Developing employee performance metrics to reduce the number of errors and skipped readings
- And overhauling programs that analyze misreads, estimated bills and customer call volume.
Deployment of the Advanced Metering Infrastructure program should also help, according to the audits.
Separate city audits are expected for the smart metering program and utilities department's customer service wing.
Faulconer also said he's ordered a review of the entire Public Utilities Department.
"We must change the culture of this department to consistently deliver the excellent services San Diegans expect," he said.
CITY AUDIT
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