HomeMy WebLinkAboutResolution No. 2024-013 A Resolution of the City of Arlington Authorizing the Waiver of Unbilled Utility Fees Due to a Software Error RESOLUTION NO. 2024-013
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY OF ARLINGTON
AUTHORIZING THE WAIVER OF UNBILLED UTILITY FEES
DUE TO A SOFTWARE ERROR
WHEREAS, effective February 2023, City of Arlington utility rates changed, and an
update to the billing software occurred which resulted in a utility billing error for
commercial accounts; and
WHEREAS, the error caused the base rate component of the fees to be unbilled
for most accounts, although other portions of the utility rates were billed to the
customers; and
WHEREAS, the billing error went undiscovered for nine months and management
wasn't able to begin addressing the issue until the October/November 2023 billing cycle;
and
WHEREAS, the billing error was corrected and new processes have been put into
place to minimize and detect future errors in a timely manner; and
WHEREAS, it is estimated that there are 600 commercial utility accounts which
may have been underbilled as a result of the software error, and an estimated $120,000
in lost revenue, or an average of two hundred dollars ($200.00) per account; and
WHEREAS, in order to fully analyze the underbilling, the city finance staff would
have to undertake the following steps:
1. Run 2 separate reports from the City's accounting system to capture the data
needed to analyze underbilling;
2. Merge the data from the two reports to create a database to start working from;
3. Analyze each customer individually, by month, for the entire year of 2023 to
confirm which months were billed correctly or incorrectly;
4. Manually recalculate the meter reads, month by month, and determine what was
billed vs what should have been billed, due to discrepancies between those
accounts above and below the minimum usage of 300 cubic feet;
5. Once the amount that needs to be billed would be determined, City staff would
then need to figure out how to actually add that charge into the accounting
system, determine whether to offer a payment plan (which would also have to be
tracked separately and manually remove any late fees), and consider how to
handle shut off for nonpayment of current charges vs nonpayment for back billed
charges; and
RESOLUTION NO. 2024-013
WHEREAS, a preliminary analysis suggested that each account would require
numerous hours to fully analyze, not including the time it would take to actually bill the
charges and manage them until they were paid in full; and
WHEREAS, the staff time for the account-by-account reviews would be a
significant project, involving many thousands of dollars of staff time, which in many or
even most cases would exceed the amount which could be collected; and
WHEREAS,the billing error was no fault of the customers,and because of the lapse
in time from when the billing error was discovered until management was notified, staff
recommends waiving the unbilled fees so as to not cause undue financial hardship to the
business community, in addition to limiting the costs to the City of retroactive billing; and
WHEREAS, after considering all of the costs associated with attempting to collect
the unbilled utility rates, the city staff believes that waiver of the unbilled rates is in the
overall best interests of the City;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF ARLINGTON,
WASHINGTON AS FOLLOWS:
1. City staff is authorized to waive commercial utility fees which were not billed during
the period between February of 2023 and November of 2023.
ADOPTED by the City Council and APPROVED by the Mayor this 20th day of May, 2024.
,ftY OF ARLINGTON
Don Vanney, Mayor
ATTEST:
�kWendy Vaif Der Meersche, City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
z
Stev' . e' e, City Attorney
RESOLUTION NO. 2024-013