City of Live Oak and CH2M-Hill OMI officials held a workshop Tuesday, July 28, to clear up some recent questions regarding the city’s meter reading practices and several customers’ high utility bills of late.

The discussion was prompted after Suwannee Valley Transit Authority Administrator Larry Sessions suggested meter readers were just estimating water usage and making up for underestimations in one large monthly bill. According to Sessions, SVTA had been receiving bills in the $200s for the past three years, many of which were identical in charges, until a $559 bill arrived in May.

Currently there are two meter readers responsible for reading over 5,200 water and gas meters in the city of Live Oak, OMI Project Manager Roy Hutchinson explained. They complete 38 routes in a single read cycle, which lasts from the first to the 20th of each month and contains 14 to 15 working days, Hutchinson said. Meter dials are read visually and the number is punched into a handheld device. If a reading is not within a customer’s normal usage parameters, the device will beep to alert the reader of a possible mis-punch or abnormality with the meter.

“When each route is completed, our meter readers come in and take the information that’s been punched into the handheld units and they’ll upload it to the city’s software system,” said Hutchinson. “We do that each time a route is complete. Once we complete all 38 routes and the read cycle is complete, the city will, as a means of checks and balances, issue out a re-read list.”

The re-read list is comprised of readings that are not consistent with previous readings for a particular customer, Hutchinson explained.

“At that point a third party will go out and recheck those meters and the actual readings to make sure there was no mistake during the initial read,” Hutchinson continued. “Following that is the cutoff list, at which time we’ll go out and we’ll actually conduct cutoffs to terminate service for nonpayment.”

One issue brought up by Sessions and several other citizens is the presence of dirt on top of the meter boxes, sometimes making the dials difficult or impossible to read. Hutchinson said dirt in the meter box is not indicative of the meters not being read. Meter readers carry around a brush to clean off the lens but don’t dig out the boxes, he said. If they come across a broken or scratched lens, they report it for a work order.

“We know they’re there everyday, they’re reading every meter, because of the amount of work orders being turned in for raising, lowering or changing boxes or lenses out,” said Hutchinson. “There is, on occasion, dirt in the meter box, but that does not mean the dial itself cannot be read.”

Longtime meter reader Billy Law addressed the accusation that readers were estimating usage. Law said it is not city policy to estimate meters and he has never done so, except in past city-wide cases when meters could not be reached due to flooding. In those situations, a minimum bill was issued.

As for customers receiving identical bills, Law said it could happen.

“Through my experience, the average residential and even commercial people live through a cycle and you pretty much do the same routine daily,” said Law. “If you look at most accounts, you’re gonna see there is a consistency unless they’ve had a problem or they’re a company with different times of the year for watering. It’s not unusual for accounts to fall within certain parameters.”

Interim city manager Jan Parkhurst said the identical bills could also be a result of the city’s minimum billing policy. Each customer is expected to use a minimum amount of water each month and is charged for that minimum usage even if they use less than that, Parkhurst explained. If a customer is using less than the minimum amount, their water bill could be identical for multiple different months.

“With water, you basically get from one gallon to 3,000 gallons,” said Law. “Now, that can range from one gallon to 3,999 gallons because we bill per 1,000 gallons. We don’t read 100s. So you could already be using 999 gallons above, but you won’t be charged until the following month.”

High spikes in customers’ water bills are typically cause for investigation, Law said, as the spikes could indicate a leak or a reading error. If no water is running in a residence or business, and the meter is not spinning, then the reading behind the high bill was likely due to human mistake, Law explained. But if no water is running, and the meter is still spinning, there’s probably a leak somewhere. The most common source of leaks is toilets, Law said, and those leaks can last a long time before a customer notices something is wrong.

“In my experience, more than 95 percent of all complaints are all issues with high water bills because of commodes or toilets,” added Hutchinson.

The possibility of meters not functioning properly was also brought up at the workshop. Hutchinson said meters are like people; the older they get, the slower they get. While the city’s current meters function fine, newly installed meters tend to function more precisely, he explained.

The workshop discussion concluded with OMI’s findings on SVTA’s high bill and purported leak.

“We went back out there this month and found that, again, there was a high usage of water through the meter,” said Hutchinson. “We turned off all water on the property and inspected the meter and there was absolutely no creep.”

Hutchinson said if there was a leak on SVTA’s property, the meter would have “creeped” or moved.

“There’s no leak,” said Hutchinson. “But from the city’s perspective, we have to consider the water went through the meter, period. So it’s water used for that account. I will agree that the amounts are a lot higher than what the trend was.”

Several months ago, SVTA’s backflow pipe was thought to have a leak by OMI officials. Sessions said the agency’s high May bill had dropped back into SVTA’s regular range the following month despite no repairs being made on the reported leak. In this situation, Hutchinson said the pipe could have fixed itself.

“On occasion, backflows will do that. RPC valves pick up a little trash and they have to blow it out,” said Hutchinson. “There’s a lot of water that comes through a backflow and it doesn’t take long to increase usage.”

Live Oak City Council President Keith Mixon noted the number of complaints compared to the number of meters in the city was exceptionally low, and expressed confidence in the work of the city’s meter readers.

“There’s nothing to gain by these two meter readers to falsify information, but there is a whole lot to lose,” added Hutchinson.