Watershed Back Billing Audit - August 2009

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Watershed Back Billing Audit

Released August 2009

Download the Full Report here
Download highlights here

We undertook this audit at the request of the Atlanta City Council. The department, Atlanta City Council, and local media received numerous customer complaints regarding water billing, meter functionality and shutoffs in early January, shortly after the back billed adjustments were posted to accounts.

We found the department:

• did not adequately plan to implement the fiscal year 2009 rate increase
• did not sufficiently plan for the back bill once it decided to recover revenue lost from the billing delay
• testing did not ensure that system changes operated as intended before sending out the bills
• did not explain the process of the July Back billing timely or clearly to customers.