Central Arkansas Water has refunded the 2,224 accounts that were incorrectly levied late fees because of a glitch in the agency's software, Chief Executive Officer Graham Rich said Wednesday.
He said 18 glitches -- out of about 150 problems identified after the agency upgraded its enQuesta billing software late last year -- remain.
Rich and other agency executives will update the utility's board of commissioners on the software glitches today at a 2 p.m. commission meeting.
The most troublesome problem occurred between mid-December and the end of February and caused late fees to be erroneously charged to customers who had an account credit that wasn't distributed properly.
Central Arkansas Water customer representatives first realized the error in January, but it wasn't until March 1 that the software company, Systems & Software, corrected the problem. At the end of March, the agency pushed the software company to provide a list of affected accounts. The 2,224 accounts weren't identified until the first week of April.
"That by far was the biggest issue and is resolved," Rich told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday. "That's not to say as we move forward there still will not be errors, but what we are finding now is that they tend to be more isolated. ... We are catching them."
There have been other glitches that also affected customers' bills, Rich said, but they have not been as widespread.
One error caused a base charge for a sprinkler to incorrectly be applied to 34 accounts that had the sprinkler cut off during the winter. Another error affected 32 accounts that were signed up to have payments automatically drafted from bank accounts, but a glitch caused the payment not to be drafted and a late fee to be charged. Both problems have since been fixed, customers were notified and they have been given refunds.
Eighteen issues remain, mostly problems with efficiency or internal accounting methods, which won't affect a customer's bill, said John Tynan, public-affairs director.
He and Rich both noted that addressing the glitches has improved the water agency's quality control and assurance checks. When a problem arises now, the agency simultaneously addresses the root cause, makes the appropriate adjustments and informs affected customers, Tynan said.
Every customer affected by the erroneous late fees received a letter informing them of the error and that their account had been re-credited, but it was several weeks after the error occurred. Now, any time a customer's bill is affected, that customer will either be emailed immediately if the agency has a working email address or the customer will receive a mailed letter informing him of the problem right away.
Central Arkansas Water has withheld one-third of its payment for the software upgrade from Systems & Software and will continue to do so until the remaining problems are resolved, Chief Operations Officer Thad Luther said. The software company's goal is to have those corrected by the end of the month, Luther said, but he added that the utility must test each fix and make sure it works properly before implementing the change.
Realistically, it may be June before all of the identified errors are corrected. Central Arkansas Water has a maintenance contract with the software company that provides for continued technology assistance if other glitches are noticed in the future.
"We're still not happy, but we're seeing more improvement," Rich said, noting that the agency received a call from a customer Wednesday morning who thanked employees for sending out the letter notifying him of the late-fee error.
Metro on 05/08/2014