City controller criticizes water-billing system

City Controller Alan Butkovitz slammed Philadelphia's water-bill collection system yesterday, saying recent water and sewer rate increases - including a 6.4 percent increase yesterday - were due in part to the city's inability to fix long-standing problems.

"After five attempts and an estimated cost of $50 million, the city still does not have an accurate and fully functioning water-billing system," Butkovitz said. "While the problem appears to get worse year after year, Philadelphians continue to foot the bill for this ongoing technological mess."

The problem dates to 2002, when the city began work on a billing system to replace the 30-year-old software that generated bills for 600,000 water customers. After many stops and starts, a new billing system went online in 2008.

Butkovitz contends that this billing system is flawed as well, pointing to a drop in water-bill collections ($9 million less under the new system) and an increase in delinquent bills ($11 million).

Butkovitz also said the new system still produced erroneous bills, and he released a copy of a February 2008 bill that charged one single-family customer $347,824 for a month of water.

City Revenue Commissioner Keith Richardson, who oversees the billing system, said that bill had been generated in the early months of the new system. when flaws were still being fixed.

"The system does now work. People are getting accurate bills," Richardson said.

The commissioner said the dropoff in collections and higher delinquency were due to the faltering economy and new restrictions on the department's ability to shut off water to delinquent customers, not the billing system.