Cove Residents Have Questions About Water Bills
When water bills start to fluctuate while nothing else changes in usage, it brings up questions.
Brandon Hamilton with our news partner, KWTX-TV, reports that Copperas Cove residents are searching for answers concerning the city's water billing system.
It was only a few days ago that a decision was made to start an audit and get to the bottom of why residents are reportedly seeing absurdly high bills and major inaccuracies in reported usage.
It seems that a company called Fathom was contracted to take over the water billing in 2016. Shortly after, the questions began.
Speaking to KWTX, Tina Verner said, "Between the hours of like 12 a.m. to 10 a.m., on the website it is showing that I’m using up to 15 gallons every hour persistently. It's not going up and down. Then on some days it's showing that for two hours there is no water usage."
The City of Copperas Cove made the decision to audit Fathom after hearing several similar statements from citizens. The audit will look at one percent of the accounts and audit in full detail, to include: billing, meter readings, adjustments, corrections, payments made or applied. The audit will cost the city $16,000 and will come out of the city's water and sewer fund.
Fathom released the following statement to News 10:
"FATHOM has discussed the City’s request for an audit, we are supportive of this process, will fully cooperate and support any actions that document the execution of our utility billing services. We hope the process will continue to build trust in the City and FATHOM, we empathize with customers who are impacted by the rising cost of water and the efforts to more accurately measure water use."
The audit should be completed by the end of November.
Hopefully it won't take 75 gallons to cook Thanksgiving dinner.