Monroe City addresses utility bill issues
MONROE CITY, Mo. (WGEM) - Monroe City is addressing problems in its billing system and residents could see changes on their utility bills in the near future.
Employees are now turning to the power of problem solving.
Monroe City’s administrator said several factors have led to utility bill inaccuracies, ranging from a new computer program to meter reading issues.
City administrator Tamitha Ague is one of several new employees in Monroe City and just started in March. However, she has inherited years of unnoticed utility bill issues.
“We’ve come across some errors we noticed and began finding a few of the errors a couple of months ago,” Ague said. “We’ve been kind of diving in to figure out where are those coming from.”
Employees have spent days and even overtime hours reviewing the city’s billing system along with customers’ individual bills.
“There are different meters with meter reader guys,” administrative assistant Phoebe Ransom said. “We’re double, triple checking anything that looks odd.”
They’ve discovered that some customers have been under billed while others have overpaid.
“Please be patient,” Ransom said. “We know it’s going to be rough on everybody. We’re trying to handwrite receipts, because we don’t want anybody to think that we are doing anything wrong. We want to assure them the best we can that we are going to work with everybody.”
The city hopes a complete review and reset will spot issues and correct them moving forward.
The city has postponed the August meter reading until September to help with that process.
Ague hopes the pause will allow the city’s utility billing and reading systems to train staff and provide assistance.
City hall is only accepting past due utility payments right now.
Staff is in the process of completing Monroe City’s July billing, which will be mailed Aug. 31.
Monroe City plans to read meters next month on Sept. 21 to Sept. 22.
Utility billing for all residents will resume in October.
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