Meter reading problems cited in Tampa audit of high water bills

Problems with meter readings were cited in an audit investigating why Tampa Water Department customers received abnormally high bills earlier this year.

The audit covered a 13-month period between January 2010-11. It found that thousands of water meters weren't read for at least two months, some customer complaints of high bills were ignored, supervisors couldn't keep track of which worker read the meters and that the division responsible for ensuring accurate reads was understaffed.

Those issues and a host of others contributed to the sticker shock felt by hundreds of homeowners across the city when they were billed, in some cases, five to 10 times higher than normal, according to the auditors' report released today on the water department's systems and procedures.

Meters not being read for at least 63 days was one of the oversights identified in the audit. At the time, the workers read meters bi-monthly. Customers would get a bill for an actual read one month and a bill for an estimated read, based on past water usage, the next.

The report showed that out of the 956,403 meter readings recorded over the audit period, 21 percent of the meter readings took at least 63 days.

Most of the delayed reads occurred during the 2010 holidays in November and December. When auditors focused on the two-month period between December 2010 and January 2011, they found that 44 percent of meter readings took more than 62 days.

Water department officials acknowledged the problem, according to the audit. Officials noted that department will soon read meters monthly and customers will no longer receive bills based on estimated usage.

Problems also cropped up when some city services were consolidated last year and the water department took over supervision of meter readers from the finance department, the report said.

The number of meter readers was reduced from 13 to 11. One worker was responsible for "re-reads," which occurs when a customer disputes a high bill and requests another read of their meter.

After the consolidation, there was a period when "re-reads for high bills were reduced and in some cases eliminated," the report said.

"The current work and staffing level does not allow the supervisor to perform any field supervision of the meter readers' activities," the audit said. "In addition, during the accuracy tests performed on the water meters, many of the meter boxes were found with substantial amounts of debris and dirt covering the meter."

The audit made no mention of drought, watering new sod, freezing temperatures, leaky sprinklers and broken plumbing contributing to high bills. Earlier this year, city and water officials said those factors were responsible for some customers getting billed thousands of dollars.

The issue first surfaced on Jan. 10 when residents in Dana Shores complained of unusually high water bills to News Channel 8.

The audit found that the water department's equipment and software for reading meters and billing are accurate. But the report found other inefficiencies and mistakes, which include:

• When an exception report was generated — a report that flagged potentially high water use that may require a meter to be rechecked — employees in the customer service department didn't always record the average water use for a customer.

The average use is the basis for entering an estimated read in the months between an actual read. Failure to record the average use resulted in the meter readers' identification to be deleted, along with the data they gathered during a re-read.

The inaccurate reading would then lead to in an under- or over-billing of a customer.

• Meter readers not entering a number, or their name, to identify where and how frequently they checked meters. When the audit started, meter readers weren't even required to enter any identifying information.

Later, they were asked to enter their first names in the handheld devices used to read meters, but "did so inconsistently." The system also wouldn't allow names five characters or longer to be inputted.

• Meter readers could become complacent because each one was assigned the same route for long periods of time. Readers with Hillsborough County have their routes rotated, resulting in reads between 23 and 38 seconds. Tampa's meter readers averaged reads between 41 and 75 seconds.

A follow-up report will be released in six months to see what changes the water department has made, auditors said. On Thursday, the Tampa City Council will consider hiring workers from a private company to help the water department start monthly meter readings next month.