Avista’s fix has some bills jumping

Some Avista customers are complaining of a huge increase in their Avista bills after a wayward meter reader failed to actually read some meters.

“He apparently was not reading the meters and just coming up with a number,” Avista Utilities spokeswoman Debbie Simock said.

As first reported on spokesmanreview.com, customers who were underbilled in November and December as a result of the meter reader’s work – or lack of it – now find themselves owing the utility considerably more than they expected as a result of the correction.

The employee was fired, Simock said. Because he was assigned to different routes, “we don’t know the full extent of the misreads.”

Of course, there must have been some customers who now find themselves paying less than expected as a result of being previously overbilled, but apparently they aren’t complaining.

“This was the first time in Spokane that we have had this type of situation,” Simock said, recalling a similar problem a number of years ago in Oregon.

“We apologize to the customers impacted by this,” Simock said. “As soon as the problem was identified, we sent out more senior readers to reread. Not all bills were read high. Some were read low.”

She said the utility would work out payment arrangements with customers affected by dramatic increases in their bills. Customers will be billed only for energy used.

One customer who called The Spokesman-Review said her bill climbed to $268 from $160 the previous month. She declined to be identified.

Unseasonably cold weather may have contributed to the spike, Simock said. January 2007 was on average 10 degrees colder than January 2006. Also, because of the holidays, Avista Utilities billed for 33 days on the most recent statements.

Simock said 25 Avista employees read 200,000 meters a month in Spokane, and they have a 99.81 percent accuracy rate.

“We have high expectations for our meter readers,” Simock said. “This is one employee that did not live up to those high expectations.”

The former meter reader, whom Simock would not identify, was a recent hire. He was assigned routes all over Spokane, Spokane Valley and Liberty Lake and read 10,000 meters in January.

The utility still does not know how many were inaccurately read, or how many were read at all.

The problem was caught by Jackie Foss, a former meter reader who is now manager of meter readers for the utility.

“We noticed high bills, some outside the limits,” Foss said. “I just had a feeling there was something wrong.”

So, Foss went out into the field to read meters firsthand and compared her results with the employee’s.

“There was just no way they could have been correct,” Foss said.

She said the employee had read some of the meters, but not all.

“We would hit pockets, and it was obvious he didn’t read these,” Foss said.

So far, her staff has found most of the misread areas in northwest Spokane. There were also misread meters around Carnahan Road and 16th Avenue on the South Hill and 23rd Avenue and Pines Road in the Valley.

Foss said her employees feel let down by their former co-worker.

“Most love their job and have a lot of pride in their job,” she said. “This has been devastating to them.”