Minutes - Council Work Session - 04/10/2007

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Councilmember Dehen asked if the City has the ability to collect more often than they are currently collecting from Connexus. Finance Officer Lund replied Connexus bills quarterly but the City receives monthly payments. The contract states the payments will be monthly, which is standard. Connexus would not likely want to wire the funds more often, as there is a cost to wire the funds and it needs to be tracked. The extra interest earnings that would come in on the account from more frequent payments would not be substantial. Councilmember Dehen asked if there have been other quality of service issues with Connexus other than the $700,000 billing error. Finance Officer Lund indicated there was the recent $6,000 water bill a resident received where the problem could have been discovered sooner if the readings had not been estimated. Bringing the service in-house would improve customer satisfaction with all of the information available at the City, rather than the current back and forth between the City and Connexus. Councilmember Strommen explained with the $6,000 residential water bill Connexus did not conduct a reading during one period and claimed it was due to weather. However, after a review of the weather it could not be determined why there would have been a problem with the reading, and there were many meters that were not read. The City is paying for the meters to be read and Connexus was missing readings on a large amount of them. Finance Officer Lund indicated Connexus had said that a lot of the accounts were estimated because they could not get good readings with the guns, but at that time there should have been an error list generated for the City. If the resident with the $6,000 water bill had not had their readings estimated for two quarters the problem likely would have been caught sooner. Councilmember Dehen questioned if the $6,000 residential billing is an isolated situation. Finance Officer Lund replied it is an uncommon situation that occurred because the resident was not aware that the sprinkler system needed to be winterized, and her husband was serving in Iraq. Connexus does not allow the capability of putting informational notices. about this type of maintenance in the billing, which is something that could be done with in-house billing. Councilmember Look pointed out there seems to be a common theme that there is a major problem communicating with the customers and in the level of service provided by Connexus. However, according to the contract there is a basic service that is not being met. He suggested the City go back to Connexus and state that this is a basic service included in the contract that will be required. Finance Officer Lund explained with the $6,000 water bill the contract was pointed out to Connexus. Their reply was that they completed their responsibility; they went to the house and plugged in the gun but did not get a reading because something is wrong with the meter and the City's meter system is outdated. . City Council Work Session / April 10, 2007 Page 3 of9