San Diego’s utility office struggles with water billing sytem
Summary of San Diego Public Utilities Department Problems
Key issues include:
- 1. Delayed and inaccurate water bills, with some customers receiving massive bills for thousands of dollars after months of no billing. This stems from a 2018 audit that found numerous billing errors.
- 2. Almost 700 customers recently had money wrongly withdrawn from their bank accounts due to an error with the auto-pay system, which the city blamed on a contractor.
- 3. Long wait times when customers call for assistance, sometimes hours long. Some frustrated customers even visit the department's old address.
- 4. Outdated technology, inefficient processes, inadequate employee training, and staff vacancies have contributed to the problems.
- 1. Implementing audit recommendations, though progress has been slow. 8 of 10 recommendations from a 2018 audit have been implemented.
- 2. Upgrading technology, including a new billing system, customer self-service portal, and contact center software to improve efficiency and customer experience. Smart water meters are also planned.
- 3. Hiring more staff, enhancing training, and improving management oversight.
- 4. Reducing call wait times, which have dropped from 2 hours to around 35 minutes on average.
- 5. Allowing customers with large accumulated bills to pay over time with no penalties or interest.
Video Summary
This news report discusses ongoing issues with the San Diego Public Utilities Department, specifically regarding erroneous water bills that have been sent to residents. The key points are:
- San Diego residents have been receiving water bills amounting to thousands of dollars, and these billing issues have been ongoing since 2018.
- City Councilmember Marni Von Wilpert visited the Public Utilities Department to investigate the extent of the problem.
- One of the major issues seems to be the smart water meters installed in 2018, which have been flagging and holding back bills for months, then releasing large, unexpected bills to residents.
- When residents call to complain, they are often put on hold for hours. Some frustrated residents even visit the Public Utilities Department's old address, which hasn't been updated on Google for 2 years.
- The phone systems are expected to be upgraded by September 27th to reduce wait times.
- Due to the billing issues, the city is not currently shutting off water for non-payment.
- Some of the problems are systemic and could take months or even years to fully resolve.
The report highlights the frustration and inconvenience faced by San Diego residents due to these ongoing billing errors and the slow response from the Public Utilities Department in addressing these issues.
Video Transcript
Here is the cleaned-up transcript with corrected spelling, grammar, and punctuation:
Eligible in 25 years, and it will be up to a parole board to grant him freedom. New tonight, a member of the San Diego City Council is demanding answers on the ongoing billing errors from the city's Public Utilities Department. This comes after residents in America's Finest City say they've gotten water bills that are in the thousands. Our Jamie Chambers spoke with Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and joins us live along the Embarcadero with more on this. Jamie?
These bills have been problems for years, going back to 2018, to be specific, when it got really messy. City Council Member Marni says that it's become such a problem recently that she walked herself down to the Public Utilities Department and took a tour directly to see just how big of a mess it is.
This is the sound of hundreds of pages of angry residents complaining to City Councilwoman Marni von Wilpert. (Sound of pages flipping) "Experiencing issues in 2021, 2023, and this person is trying, they're trying."
The Public Utilities Department has been struggling to do normal things like get bills out for decades, but in 2018, smart water meters were added into the equation. And for tens of thousands of San Diegans, it's been more than just problematic.
"What is happening in this department? Why are so many of my constituents calling in asking for help? And we're happy to help them. If anybody calls us, we will get them through the system, get their water bill fixed. But you shouldn't have to call your council member to get your water bill resolved," von Wilpert said.
Von Wilpert says one of the major glitches in the system has been the failed smart meters flagging and holding back bills for months, then releasing a huge surprise bill on residents. And when those residents call, they're on hold for sometimes hours. Some ratepayers are so frustrated on hold that they'll physically come to the address where the Public Utilities Department used to be housed. Security guards inside tell me it happens just a handful of times a day. Then they have to tell those folks that they've got the wrong address; they haven't been there for 2 years.
"It's just a mess, and so we need to do everything we can to dig out from this backlog, actually get the customers what they need, and make sure the customer service experience is improved," von Wilpert said.
Von Wilpert says, at the very least, the phone systems are expecting an upgrade to cut those wait times by September 27th. "At this point, we're not turning off water because of all the billing issues. That is not a concern people have to worry about."
Now, there are some issues that are systemic and could take months, maybe even years, to unwind. So many of the things that the Water Department, excuse me, the Public Utilities Department, is struggling with, for some, could simply be changing the address on Google, which would take a day. But that's been 2 years, and every day these poor security guards say more and more people come out to complain to them, and they say, "Look, they're just not here." So let's fix the address first and foremost.
Video Summary
Video Transcript
Tonight, for the first time, the city of San Diego's Public Utilities director is sitting exclusively with CBS8 to explain why thousands of customers aren't getting their water bills on time.
Good evening, I'm Jesse Pagan in for Marcelo Lee. I'm Carlo Chichett. We've spent months pushing for answers after hearing from a lot of you who have had your bills on hold for months. Shannon Handy is here live with what the director told her today. Shannon?
Carlo and Jesse, I sat down with Juan Guerrero for about an hour earlier today. He admits the department has been struggling to find a solution to this billing problem, but promised a fix is coming next month.
"Do you share in the frustration of your customers?"
"Absolutely. Our management team lives it every day, you know, and it's our mission to fix it."
Juan Guerrero has been with San Diego Public Utilities for over 7 years. He's only been director for a year and a half, but since then, he takes responsibility for the problems that have plagued the department since before he was in charge.
"It should be in a better place by now."
"It should have been in a better place for the past few decades. But what we're doing is playing catch up, a significant amount of catch up in a really compressed timeframe."
I sat down with Guerrero to talk about this 2018 audit, which looked at Public Utilities' track record in billing and found a number of issues, one of which was not notifying customers whose bills were under review. In those cases, people's accounts were put on hold, which meant they weren't receiving bills until the investigation was complete. Then they unknowingly get one massive bill for all the months missed, which equaled thousands of dollars. At the time, 57,000 customers were impacted.
In the report, the city auditor recommended Public Utilities inform customers of quote "bill impacting activities." Fast forward five years later, CBS8 found the problem is still happening to an estimated 28,000 customers.
"Why is it taking so long to resolve these issues?"
"It was 10 recommendations. Within each recommendation there were so many different things to address, so we've been working through them," Guerrero says.
Aside from the billing issue, the audit also addressed its poor customer service practices, which for the department took priority. They overhauled their training program, hired more employees, and automated certain procedures so call wait times would go down. They also hired a new management team before recently shifting their focus to those billing issues.
"And again, it goes back to the volume of issues and prioritizing and working through each one of the issues. One of the challenges that we have is we talk a lot about aging infrastructure. Well, our aging infrastructure includes our IT," Guerrero says.
While alerting customers may seem like a simple fix, it's not. He says they've had to make 40 enhancements, including replacing their call center software systems.
"The challenge with some of the older software systems is they were very customized to our specific operation, and there were multiple software systems that are standardized throughout the city that had to work together."
In addition to that, he says a lack of staffing led to a backlog of held bills. Not only that, but San Diego is one of the largest Public Utilities in the state, he says.
"There are other programs and projects to run that can't be put on pause as we're working through these improvements. We're running a live operation, so it really takes time to get through everything."
Guerrero admits it's been a challenge, but says customers whose bills are held can expect notifications in September. As for his message to those affected:
"I apologize to them for the operations that we're working diligently to improve."
"Are you confident the department can resolve all these issues?"
"Yes, absolutely."
Guerrero says people who do get those massive bills can go on a payment plan with no added fees, but you have to call in for that. He says their wait times have gone down to an average of 30 minutes. They hope to get to 0. They have 10 open positions. So Jesse and Carlo, more work to do, but it's a massive problem, so it's not a quick fix.
Shannon, I think through our reporting we've kind of uncovered that there are layers to this issue that all culminate in the problem that people are seeing with their bills coming late and for those thousands of dollars. What else did you guys talk about during this interview about this?
Well, it was an extensive interview and as you guys know, we get emails every day from our viewers. So some people want to know, OK, when I go online, why does it say I have a $0.00 balance or why not just send me a bill for something, maybe a minimum so that I'm putting money towards the final bill. I asked him these things. We will address that tomorrow. We'll do a Part 2 of this story. But if you'd like to take a look at the entirety of this interview, it was about 30-40 minutes long. It's up at cbs8.com.
People want some answers. We're getting them for you. Thanks, Shannon.
Almost 700 customers of the San Diego Public Utilities Department had money wrongly withdrawn from their bank accounts in recent days, as city officials acknowledged the latest blunder in a long-running series of missteps for local ratepayers.
San Diego officials announced the damage to customers who rely on the utility’s auto-pay service on Tuesday, one day after The San Diego Union-Tribune asked the Mayor’s Office about the improper billings.
The news release, which came three weeks after the San Diego County grand jury issued a unflattering report on the city’s Public Utilities Department, said 690 customers were wrongly billed in recent weeks.
City officials blamed the errors on a contractor and said all of the incorrect billings had been resolved.
“We took immediate action to address this mistake, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that customers have experienced as a result of this issue,” Jonathan Behnke, the city information technology director, said in the statement.
“Over the past year, we’ve been focused on improving customer service and communication with San Diegans,” he added. “The Department of IT is implementing processes that will ensure this type of issue never happens again.”
The news release did not say how much money was wrongly taken from customers who signed up for the auto-pay service.
But NBC 7 reported that one ratepayer had almost $25,000 withdrawn from their account.
The billing error is only the latest in a years-long history of improper charges and other billing headaches imposed on San Diego water users.
In 2018, a city audit found that meter readers had figured out how to bypass required accuracy checks. The same report, prompted by a massive public outcry over thousands of inaccurate bills, found the city had no way to measure the performance of its 36 meter readers.
“PUD did not have any mechanisms in place to monitor when supervisor codes were used to circumvent controls in the hand-held devices” carried by meter readers, the audit said.
Auditors issued 10 separate recommendations, including stricter monitoring, more effective employee evaluations and a full re-evaluation of the city’s meter-reading routes. They also said department officials should strengthen their customer service.
City officials agreed to do better, but the problems have not been fully resolved.
“The Public Utilities Department does not meet the city of San Diego’s goal of providing high quality public service with a customer-focused culture,” the county grand jury said in a report issued late last month.
“Customer dissatisfaction suffers from long call wait times and a lack of response when concerns are sent by email,” the report added. “Customers are not incentivized to use the web portal due to the lack of response.”
The civilian overseers also noted that city officials did not fully cooperate with the review.
“The grand jury submitted requests to interview field investigation specialists and a supervisor, but these requests went unanswered,” the report said.
Problems with the utility’s auto-pay function are not the only issues confronting the city.
San Diego resident Cheryl Morrow said the city wrongly billed her thousands of dollars for water even though service to the home was shut off more than a year ago.
“I have not been in the house. There’s no water in the house, but the bill is about $4,000,” Morrow said in an interview this week. “I have sent them emails. I have tried to call them. You can’t get them on the phone.”
In April 2023, a succession of San Diego ratepayers complained about getting bills stretching into the thousands of dollars.
Most of them had had their bills suspended as a result of anomalies reported in their water usage, only to receive whopping invoices months later.
City officials blamed the backlogs on persistent staffing shortages, and as recently as last fall, they said they were making sweeping changes to the Public Utilities Department.
Those upgrades include a new billing system, updated customer-service software and a new policy that alerts customers when their bill is being withheld pending a leak investigation, officials said.
“When I’m at community events, people frequently pull me aside to express frustration over issues with their water bills,” Mayor Todd Gloria said last year.
“I completely understand those frustrations, and I want San Diegans to know that we recognize where the department’s customer service is falling short and are implementing changes to address longstanding systemic problems.”
The Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to questions about the grand jury report, although the city is legally obliged to submit a formal response later this summer.
The City of San Diego is implementing changes to address longstanding systemic problems in the billing processes and the quality of service for Public Utilities Department customers.
These include changes in leadership, adding staff, enhancing training and providing customers faster and more convenient access to our services with online and phone system improvements and technology upgrades.
One crucial technology change this year will allow Public Utilities to immediately notify customers when their bill is delayed for any reason.
Currently, the billing system automatically holds a customer’s bill for investigation if the amount of water used is significantly outside the typical range of a customer’s historic usage. Contributing factors may include a water leak on the property, a meter malfunction or manual misread on a water meter, or legitimate changes in a customer’s water usage.
When accounts require staff investigation, the bills are held until the investigation is resolved. Once resolved, the bills that accumulated during the investigation are issued, and the customer is contacted with details of the investigation.
The forthcoming technology enhancement will allow Public Utilities to notify customers immediately when bills are delayed so that they’re not surprised.
Public Utilities has more than 283,000 household and business accounts and it’s important to note that approximately 90% of customer bills are sent on time. While it can seem overwhelming to receive more than one bill all at once, customers can pay off their balance over time with no penalty or interest charged.
Background Information
In 2019, the Public Utilities Department conducted an internal assessment of its customer service call center. This assessment identified key challenges including:
- Outdated technology for call center phone system.
- Processes that lacked efficiency.
- Inadequate training programs for employees on how to resolve both technical and non-technical issues.
- Staff vacancies and need for more effective management oversight.
Public Utilities also was the focus of a 2018 Performance Audit of Water Billing Operations, which focused on water meter reading, billing and communication.
Eight of the 10 recommendations made in that audit have now been implemented, and Public Utilities has been forthcoming with progress on the final two recommendations – complex fixes that are well underway.
Improvements to Customer Service
Over the past six months, Public Utilities has made significant progress on improving online access to water and wastewater services, modernizing the phone system and recruitment and enhanced training of customer support staff.
Wait times have decreased for people calling the Customer Service center. In March 2023, callers were on hold for up to two hours. As of August 2023, call wait times dropped to an average of 35 minutes. The City is continuing to work on reducing wait times.
Working closely with the City’s Department of Information Technology, Public Utilities is on track to launch a modernized phone system this year. This new system will allow for more efficient call resolutions and data-driven resource allocations.
Public Utilities also heard from customers that they want to access services online when it’s convenient for them. In March 2023, it launched new webforms allowing San Diegans to submit requests and have those issues resolved within one to two business days.
Improvements in Technology
Public Utilities is developing a new online customer self-service portal that integrates with the billing system, allowing customers to complete the most common service requests quickly and conveniently from a computer or mobile device.
The first phase of the new self-service portal is expected by spring 2024.
In addition, there are 40 more technology enhancements in the works to better serve residents and businesses. These include:
- New contact center software that will route calls more efficiently to help decrease call wait times and track metrics in order to continually improve service.
- A new software interface for employees with easy-to-follow workflows to make service more efficient, resulting in fewer calls and emails to the contact center – and faster service for customers who do contact us.
A citywide deployment plan is being developed for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), also known as “smart meters.” Smart meters allow water usage data to be transmitted electronically directly to our network as well as to customers. Smart meters improve the reliability of water meter reading and empower customers to understand and adjust their usage. The plan will be completed this year.
For more information and to learn more about the planned improvements, visit the Public Utilities Customer Service webpage.
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