City government of the month: Brockton, MA

I feel kinda bad not giving it to Ann Arbor (see yesterday's post) and while Detroit is a perennial contender--one wag wrote recently, "Detroit's city council puts the dis in dysfunctional"--but, sorry, worthy contenders, Brockton's performance is simply too outstanding to ignore.

The Brockton Water Department has been inaccurately billing thousands of residents for more than a decade because of widespread failure in the city’s water meters, city officials said yesterday.

The city is seeking to reclaim millions in lost revenue that it says resulted from chronic undercharging for water usage, sending retroactive bills to customers, some for thousands of dollars. One woman said she received a bill for $100,000, which water officials said was probably a mistake. The Department of Public Works commissioner, Michael Thoreson, said the department also has mistakenly overcharged some residents. . . .

Thoreson said the problem stemmed from faulty water meters: Roughly 9,000 of the city’s 25,000 meters are not accurately reporting usage, he said.

Patrick Quinn, a member of the city Water Commission, which governs water rates, said most of those meters have probably been malfunctioning for at least five years and some for more than a decade, suggesting deep management problems in the department.

Comments

[William J McKibbin]

Nothing can beat the public corruption in Bell, California -- more at:

http://wjmc.blogspot.com/2010/07/public-corruption-in-america.html

I am starting to wonder where the lines of corruption begin and end in America...

[Allencic]

A few months ago P.G. & E. put a so-called "Smart Meter" on my natural gas line. Guaranteed to be more accurate and save me money. In July I hardly used any gas (only cooking and water heating). My bill showed that I used almost exactly the same number of cubic feet of gas as last year. The result of the new metering system? My bill was almost exactly twice as much as last year. Smart for P.G. & E. If Congress and Obama have their way its what we can expect for all our energy costs.

[JorgXMcKie]

I'm willing to be that the failure of the meters was seldom in the nature of lower than actual readings. That would have had them right out there making repairs.

[JorgXMcKie]

Whoops! Shouldn't post without hitting the link first. Around here the argument has been about meters that read slightly [like 10-20%] higher than actual usage have been the big argument in the city just south of me.

Apparently the water dept there has been overcharging local residential users for several years.