Politics & Government

Krekorian Chastises DWP Execs for Rollout of New Billing System

Council members called for the meeting after constituents complained about incorrect utility bills following the launch of the department's new billing system.

By City News Service

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Krekorian chastised Department of Water and Power executives Wednesday for failing to warn the public of possible hiccups related to a $59 million overhaul of the utility's billing system.

The department had to estimate water and power usage on about 5 percent of the 2 million bills that went out to customers in the past two months, contributing to inaccurate billing, DWP Customer Operations Director Campbell Hawkins admitted during an Energy and Environment Committee meeting today.

Find out what's happening in Studio Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Krekorian represents District 2, which includes North Hollywood, Valley Village and Studio City.

Council members called today's hearing after receiving complaints from constituents who said they had gotten incorrect utility bills after the department upgraded its customer billing system in September.

Find out what's happening in Studio Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And when customers called DWP customer service to complain, they experienced unusually long delays, sometimes up to 40 minutes, they said.

Krekorian said outreach done prior to the billing system upgrade "was sorely lacking."

"Knowing this was coming, the department should have engaged in a much more robust effort to inform the public that you might see an estimated bill, and it might be wildly divergent from what you're used to receiving," Krekorian said.

"To be candid with you, I didn't know you estimated bills, until I called a month ago in response to my own bill," he said. "That was the first I knew about this."

Krekorian added he was was put on hold for 40 minutes before getting an answer.

DWP officials said they are working to cut customer telephone hold times that have climbed to 40 minutes, from the usual 10-15 minutes.

DWP officials also promised to look into implementing a "virtual hold" feature that lets customers leave their information with the customer service line, hang up, and wait for a call back when the line frees up.

Hawkins added only a "small percentage" of customers got truly inaccurate bills. Most of the estimates were based on historical data about a household's usage, he said.

Some of the bills had to be estimated because of the transition to the new billing system, which replaced an outdated, 40-year-old system, he said.

Though it usually takes about 18 months to smooth out problems in a new system, Hawkins said they would try to work quicker than that.

"Every day, every week, every month, it will get better," Hawkins said.

The committee did not take action today, but its members said they would forward the customer complaints to the department.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here