Cosmopolis finds meter-file formatting error that added 12 days to some water bills; staff to audit reads

Carrie Barr, Cosmopolis’ clerk treasurer, told the council that a recent review of water billing files discovered a formatting mismatch that had the effect of adding roughly "an extra 12 days" of usage to some customer bills. Barr said staff met with JD Fowler (the vendor’s representative) to understand the meter file layout and confirmed the reading-date field contains month, day and time down to the second; when parsed incorrectly the system produced longer billing intervals.

"This usage really equates to an extra 12 days of usage on every bill," Barr said while showing an anonymized example of an impacted account. Barr said the city will encourage customers to pay their current bills because the next billing cycle will be shorter and the overcharged days will be corrected over time; the city will also randomly select roughly 20 accounts next month to perform manual meter reads for verification.

Barr described the technical fix as stopping bad files before they are imported into Springbrook (the billing software) and creating a local process document so staff can reliably parse meter data. She also said the vendor’s initial on-site review cost the city nothing and helped city staff learn how to avoid repeating the error.

Council members asked for public communication on the issue; staff said they will make information available at City Hall and on the city page and help customers review individual bills in person.