Residents sign a petition to protest charges
Henderson Mayor Brad Staton has requested Henderson Water Utility representatives to explain the backstory of incorrect water meter readings that has led to about 3,600 residents needing to pay a “catch-up bill.”
Staton said HWU will make the presentation at the 3 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, Henderson City Commission meeting. The mayor said he wants an open session in which HWU explains how the mistake occurred and for HWU officials to field questions from the commission.
“The public wants to know and deserves a more detailed answer than what they’ve been told,” he said.
But he stopped short of saying that there will be any changes to the current plan requiring residents to pay the catch-up bill.
Meanwhile, community advocate Jay Randolph has organized an online petition for affected residents to sign to present to the city commission. He said that requiring payment for mistakes residents didn’t make is unjust.
“This issue falls on the city,” Randolph said. “It’s the city’s fault, not the residents’.
“For something that is your fault,” he asked of city officials, “why are you not holding yourselves accountable and not taking care of the issue?”
Randolph urged residents to come to Feb. 11’s city commission meeting and let your voice be heard.
“I just want people’s voices to be heard,” he said.
The online petition includes this language, “… we call for a review and redress of this situation in Henderson KY. All fees that have been unjustly charged to city residents due to faulty water meter readings should be removed, and any payments already made should be credited back to the residents’ accounts. It is not the residents’ responsibility to pay for shortcomings in city infrastructure or manufacturing defects.”
As of early Wednesday morning, there were 299 verified signatures on the petition.
Though it remains to be seen exactly how the issue will play out, HWU General Manager Bart Boles said Tuesday that the utility currently doesn’t have plans to change course and attempt to recoup money from the vendor, Core & Main.
He said the company did nothing wrong and did what they were supposed to do, which is to deliver the equipment.
“We have no plans to go after someone who got us what we needed,” he said.
Furthermore, he said the catch-up bills include the charge for the water that each customer used. He said it wouldn’t be fair to other customers who have all along paid bills for their water usage to not enforce payment of the catch-up bills.
“Our other customers had to pay their bills,” he said.
He recognizes that many customers are on a fixed income and said that bills can be paid off over the course of 12 months. He said there could be chances for even longer terms, too.
The catch-up bills average between $200-$250, he said.
The issue began last year as HWU was in the process of replacing water meters and the utility had to switch suppliers from United Systems to Core & Main. Boles said that initial supplier United Systems had reprogrammed the meters before they were delivered to HWU, but the new company, Core & Main, didn’t take that final step before HWU received the meters.
So, when the new water meters were installed for those 3,000-plus customers after the supplier switch, the system did not work properly. Boles said the meters recorded the correct usage at the homes, but HWU—and the city’s billing department—saw was something different, Boles said.
The final digit of the number of gallons a customer used in a month was not seen, Boles said. For example, if a customer used 3,000 gallons in a month, then it was shown as 300 gallons. Effectively, affected customers have been paying 1/10 of their owed bills since the malfunction occurred.
Letters were sent out last week, and many affected customers received them late in the week or early this week. Additionally, several news outlets carried the initial “catch-up bill” story, and a press release was shared on the city’s Facebook page. Since the release of the information, a firestorm of local online activity has arisen.
“Is this fun? No, it’s not fun,” Boles said. “Are we (HWU) taking a beating? Of course, we’re taking a beating.
“But we’re trying to manage it the best we can to be fair to our customers,” Boles said.
Finally, the city commission will meet 5 p.m. Wednesday for a special called meeting, when they will retire to an executive session to discuss “threats of litigation regarding errant billing issues against the City/HWU, and regarding potential litigation against the manufacturer, vendor, and/or installer of water meters which led to said errant billing issue,” according to notice sent from the city. An open discussion will follow, per a revised agenda sent out Tuesday afternoon.