Thousands of San Diego families are plenty upset with the city’s Public Utilities Department’s way of handling their bills as they go months without seeing one. Adding to their frustration is how hard it is to get a hold of someone at the department, they say.
“This is probably $20, bottle it up, sell it,” joked Scott Rapoport as he watered plants in his home’s backyard in San Diego. He moved here back in July from the Bay Area and started signing up for city services right away. He says getting water under his name became a near-impossible task.
“I was able to get an email from them and send them some information, and then they went silent. I was unable to get any traction in setting up our water service,” he said.
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It was a silence that became louder with each day that trickled into months without getting confirmation that his account was set up, or even a bill. He recalled regularly calling the water department and would often be on hold for over an hour trying to speak to someone.
“It was like a routine to call them and I'd leave the phone on my desk playing this terrible background music while I waited for someone to pick up and it never happened,” he said, explaining that his biggest concern was that he had no way of knowing his water usage or if there was a water leak costing him money.
NBC 7 Responds Stories
"It was a lot of wasted time...contemplated the audacity of sending them a bill for my time."
Scott Rapoport
“It was a lot of wasted time, so much so that even at one point, contemplated the audacity of sending them a bill for my time,” Rapoport added, half-kidding.
In March, he finally got a hold of someone and confirmed that water service was under his name all this time. He finally got his bill too, retroactive to July coming in at over $1,700.
“There’s obviously sticker shock, you know, you don’t want to ever receive a bill of that magnitude,” he said.
He’s not the only one with this type of sticker shock. NBC 7 Responds confirmed that thousands of San Diegans are having their bills held back. The city told us no one was available for an interview but did send us the following email:
City of San Diego's Explanation on Delayed Water Bills to NBC 7 Responds
“City of San Diego water bills are based on water usage, measured by a water meter. The vast majority of our water meters are manually read every two months.
Currently, more than 90% of Public Utilities customers receive timely bills. Over the past few years, this number has fluctuated between 90 – 98%. It is a goal of the Public Utilities Department to continue improving operations and increase billing timeliness.
It is important that water/wastewater bills are accurate. When a water meter read is significantly outside the typical range based on historic usage, the bills are held from release to customers until the issue can be investigated by staff and a correction can be made if needed. Atypical water meter reads can be due to a leak on the property, a manual misread, a meter malfunction or another issue.
Due to staffing challenges, the Public Utilities Department is unfortunately unable to investigate each account immediately. When another billing period passes before an investigation and resolution are complete, multiple bills may then be released.
While it may seem overwhelming to receive more than one bill all at once, customers can pay off their accounts over time with no penalty or interest charged. At this time customers are notified via a letter, email or phone call, with details on the issue when the bills are released. We are committed to improving communication with our customers.
We are actively taking measures to address the staffing challenges. In addition to hiring and training staff, we’re working with the Performance and Analytics Department to improve and streamline the customer experience and relieve the strain on the customer support team.”
Scott’s happy to finally have his bill. He says he hopes the city makes good on its commitment to improve service.
“We’re paying good money for our utilities here and there is an expectation to have good services here in San Diego, a major city,” he said.
