A solution to the city of Jackson’s water/sewer billing woes is in the works, and officials say details of that plan are expected to be made public in August.
“We’ve done a good bit of research into what the deficiencies in the system are, and now we’re going to build a plan to address those deficiencies,” said Chief Administrative Officer Robert Blaine.
At the heart of the matter is the city’s customer care and billing system, installed as part of the Siemens overhaul.
Work on the system wrapped up in 2015 and has been problematic ever since.
Today, due to complications with the system, Jackson is bringing in about $20 million a year less than it should in water usage fees. Meanwhile, thousands of customers regularly do not receive water bills.
Blaine said plans to overhaul the system will include four main objectives: to ensure the long-term financial stability of the water/sewer department, to ensure the city brings in enough money to cover operations and maintenance, to help restore the city’s bond rating, and to allow the city to build an “affordability plan for our lowest quintile of customers.”
“Whatever system modifications we make, we have to achieve all four of those objectives.”
The city will be paying for those upgrades, at least in part, with about $14 million in funding.
Jackson has about $10.6 million in proceeds remaining from the Siemens settlement, as well as $3.5 million left over from a $7 million bond the city issued in the fall to move the billing software onto a cloud-based system.
Previously, the software was located on city servers, which, due to age and capacity issues, were no longer functioning properly.
Right now, a team of consultants and city officials are assessing the current billing system, to determine “what is salvageable, what is not and what we need to invest in,” Blaine said.
He said a plan based on those assessments will be released in August. “In September we will be able to issue contracts for the various phases of remediation and we can begin work in October, at the start of the fiscal year.”
The fiscal year runs from October 1 of the current year to September 30 of the following.
Meanwhile, the city is also moving forward on a temporary plan to hire temporary meter readers at the first council meeting in August.
These readers would work for Jackson on a temporary basis and be responsible for reading meters for accounts that currently are not being billed.
Blaine said the contractor will focus first on commercial accounts, in an attempt to recoup a portion of the $1.5 million to $2 million in revenues that are going uncollected each month.
“We need to capture that revenue. Then we can look on the residential side,” he said.
The Siemens contract included replacing all of the city’s water meters with electronic ones, setting up a new billing system in the city’s water/sewer billing office and installing a new mesh network that would allow meters to communicate with the office.
Malfunctions have occurred on almost every level. In some cases, problems with the mesh network prevent meters from communicating with the billing office. In other cases, meters don’t function properly because of battery problems.
The Lumumba administration brought suit against Siemens last year and settled in early 2020 for nearly $90 million, the amount of the original contract.
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Jackson officials say they will release plan to correct water billing problems in August - Northside Sun
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