Siemens, Jackson officials clash over water bill hiccups
Jackson City Council members addressed a representative from Siemens regarding its problematic water billing system Monday, prompting a contentious debate.
“We’re still waiting on some explanations on what’s going on with bringing AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) reads in, so it is not proven to be the simple push-a-button process that was presented to us,” Jackson Public Works Director Kishia Powell said. “It is taking a lot of effort, and there’s still some things that we’re trying to understand and get some feedback from their billing subcontractor.”
As of April 18, 45,000 city water accounts are using AMI — the automated water billing system Siemens promised would save Jackson money, the incentive of the project.
There are nearly 13,000 small meters and 165 large meters not yet installed.
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Frank Gagliardi, the Siemens representative who gave an update on the contract in Monday’s budget committee meeting, said any meters without AMI data are ones that are damaged, not communicating, or on a “Do Not Do” or “Cannot Do” list.
Roughly 6,000 accounts on meters with AMI data, however, are still receiving estimated bills because of a backlog in the system that can only be cleared manually. Powell said accounts that should be producing automatic accurate reads are still generating bill estimations because of prior "to-dos" in the system.
"You have to go in and you've got to cancel out the prior bills in order to get it to take the AMI read," Powell said.
Powell estimated it takes a worker nearly a half an hour to address each account. She said it is unrealistic to think that the billing department can solve this issue manually with its staff size.
"Currently, we're working with the city to clear a very large backlog of to-dos and the backlog of to-dos is mostly related to the fact that accounts have been estimated month after month. The work is progressing," said Gagliardi, director of field operations for building performance and sustainability for Siemens.
Gagliardi said he could not say when this issue will be resolved because he does not manage the workers tasked with clearing the to-dos.
“You, as a contractor, need to know a date that I can sit here and say that it will be done by or at least a projected date,” said Councilman De'Keither Stamps.
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Siemens anticipates that its online Customer Self-Service Portal will be accessible to the general public in June. Currently, residents can pay bills online. The company also notes that the Credit & Collection function is not yet operational, but the city is finalizing its policy for collections.
Councilman Tyrone Hendrix, who acknowledged that Siemens seems to have created a larger problem than the city hired the company to fix in the first place, expressed concern over the possible profit Siemens is receiving from the $90 million contract.
Gagliardi assured councilmen that Siemens is not receiving as large a profit as Hendrix thought, $37 million for program management, adding, "I wish we made that kind of net profit. So does every business in America."
"The fact that you would wish you would make that kind of profit while putting the entity on the taxpayers back is troubling to me," Stamps said sharply.
Contact Anna Wolfe at 601-961-7326 or awolfe@gannett.com. Follow @ayewolfe on Twitter.
