Almost 700 customers of the San Diego Public Utilities Department had money wrongly withdrawn from their bank accounts in recent days, as city officials acknowledged the latest blunder in a long-running series of missteps for local ratepayers. San Diego officials announced the damage to customers who rely on the utility’s auto-pay service on Tuesday, one
Almost 700 customers of the San Diego Public Utilities Department had money wrongly withdrawn from their bank accounts in recent days, as city officials acknowledged the latest blunder in a long-running series of missteps for local ratepayers.
San Diego officials announced the damage to customers who rely on the utility’s auto-pay service on Tuesday, one day after The San Diego Union-Tribune asked the Mayor’s Office about the improper billings.
The news release, which came three weeks after the San Diego County grand jury issued a unflattering report on the city’s Public Utilities Department, said 690 customers were wrongly billed in recent weeks.
City officials blamed the errors on a contractor and said all of the incorrect billings had been resolved.
“We took immediate action to address this mistake, and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience that customers have experienced as a result of this issue,” Jonathan Behnke, the city information technology director, said in the statement.
“Over the past year, we’ve been focused on improving customer service and communication with San Diegans,” he added. “The Department of IT is implementing processes that will ensure this type of issue never happens again.”
The news release did not say how much money was wrongly taken from customers who signed up for the auto-pay service.
But NBC 7 reported that one ratepayer had almost $25,000 withdrawn from their account.
The billing error is only the latest in a years-long history of improper charges and other billing headaches imposed on San Diego water users.
In 2018, a city audit found that meter readers had figured out how to bypass required accuracy checks. The same report, prompted by a massive public outcry over thousands of inaccurate bills, found the city had no way to measure the performance of its 36 meter readers.
“PUD did not have any mechanisms in place to monitor when supervisor codes were used to circumvent controls in the hand-held devices” carried by meter readers, the audit said.
Auditors issued 10 separate recommendations, including stricter monitoring, more effective employee evaluations and a full re-evaluation of the city’s meter-reading routes. They also said department officials should strengthen their customer service.
City officials agreed to do better, but the problems have not been fully resolved.
“The Public Utilities Department does not meet the city of San Diego’s goal of providing high quality public service with a customer-focused culture,” the county grand jury said in a report issued late last month.
“Customer dissatisfaction suffers from long call wait times and a lack of response when concerns are sent by email,” the report added. “Customers are not incentivized to use the web portal due to the lack of response.”
The civilian overseers also noted that city officials did not fully cooperate with the review.
“The grand jury submitted requests to interview field investigation specialists and a supervisor, but these requests went unanswered,” the report said.
Problems with the utility’s auto-pay function are not the only issues confronting the city.
San Diego resident Cheryl Morrow said the city wrongly billed her thousands of dollars for water even though service to the home was shut off more than a year ago.
“I have not been in the house. There’s no water in the house, but the bill is about $4,000,” Morrow said in an interview this week. “I have sent them emails. I have tried to call them. You can’t get them on the phone.”
In April 2023, a succession of San Diego ratepayers complained about getting bills stretching into the thousands of dollars.
Most of them had had their bills suspended as a result of anomalies reported in their water usage, only to receive whopping invoices months later.
City officials blamed the backlogs on persistent staffing shortages, and as recently as last fall, they said they were making sweeping changes to the Public Utilities Department.
Those upgrades include a new billing system, updated customer-service software and a new policy that alerts customers when their bill is being withheld pending a leak investigation, officials said.
“When I’m at community events, people frequently pull me aside to express frustration over issues with their water bills,” Mayor Todd Gloria said last year.
“I completely understand those frustrations, and I want San Diegans to know that we recognize where the department’s customer service is falling short and are implementing changes to address longstanding systemic problems.”
The Mayor’s Office did not immediately respond to questions about the grand jury report, although the city is legally obliged to submit a formal response later this summer.