THE CARROLL COX SHOW

Aloha, Mr. Cox~

Thank you for your patience as we worked to respond to your questions.

On July 6, 2016, Board of Water Supply meter readers obtained a total of 8,240 actual meter readings from the Royal Kunia-Village Park-Waikele-Waipahu area via Automatic Meter Reading equipment. While the data was being uploaded to the BWS’s billing system later that day, 4,695 meter readings were not transferred properly into the system. The data was not lost or destroyed; it still exists and is available for the BWS to use, so there is no need for staff to re-read the meters. However, this oversight was not discovered until after the bills were processed. By then, to ensure these customers received a timely bill, the billing system had automatically issued bills based on estimated readings. The billing period for these customers closed on July 11, 2016.

Whenever a bill is estimated, the BWS prints a notation on page 2 of the bill to notify a customer that “An estimated read was used to calculate your bill.” Any incorrect charges to the customer will be corrected by the billing system the following month. Additionally, because the BWS still has the actual meter reads, our customer service staff can also make appropriate adjustments to disputed bills on a case-by-case basis.

BWS staff has reviewed the procedures to upload the data. To prevent this type of oversight from recurring, the BWS staff has implemented procedures to ensure that meter reading data is properly transferred into the system. As part of this process, staff will verify the number of meters read with what was scheduled to be read. After the readings are uploaded in the billing system, staff will verify that the number of uploaded meter readings equals the number of meters read.

The BWS regrets this oversight, apologizes for any inconvenience this may have caused to our customers, and appreciates their understanding in this matter. Please be assured that the BWS has taken action to address this situation. The affected customers can also be assured that their bills will be corrected.

Mahalo and have a pleasant weekend,

~Tracy

From: Communications
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2016 12:01 PM
To: TRACY BURGO <TBURGO@hbws.org>
Subject: FW: Carroll Cox inquiry - Billing questions

CARROLL'S QUESTIONS

From: Carroll Cox [mailto:carroll@carrollcox.com]
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2016 9:45 AM
To: Communications <comrel@hbws.org>; Customer Service <CustomerService@hbws.org>
Subject: Fwd: Billing questions

From: Carroll Cox <carroll@carrollcox.com>
Date: July 15, 2016 at 8:05:44 AM HST
To: Shawn Nakamoto <snakamoto@hbws.org>, tbergo@hbws.org
Cc: Carroll Cox <carroll@carrollcox.com>
Subject: Billing questions

Aloha Ms. Bergo,

Can you please provide any information on a matter relating to billings in a portion of the Waipahu area.

Reportedly BWS meter readers physically read approximately forty five hundred water meters and submitted the information to the billing department where the readings were either lost or destroyed. Instead of returning to reread the meters the BWS is considering the option of computer estimating the forty five hundred bills.

Is there any truth to the above claims? If yes, please provide answers to our questions

below.

What is the specific number of ratepayers effected?

What is the specific location?

What is the billing period?

How was the readings misplaced or destroyed?

How were the ratepayers notified?

What steps are being taken to prevent future incidents like this?

I will be discussing this matter on my show this Sunday and would appreciate a response by the end of the work day today.

Thank you,

Carroll Cox

808-782-6627

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS