ALDERMEN: Utility billing beset by software issues, city says

The bills were supposed to go out the week of May 18, but the city announced over the weekend that about 1,570 are yet to be mailed. Walden said the remaining bills will go out as soon as possible.

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Some elected officials, including board president Kim Steelman and mayor Brad Nash, have been helping out, he said. “It’s all hands on deck to get the bills out,” Steelman said.

Software compatibility issues between the AMI meter reading system and the city’s Incode billing software have caused many of the problems, Walden said. When the system was first installed, attempts were made to pull usage data for billing and the compatibility issues surfaced.

“Something about how our software was implemented was different than the other versions (the AMI vendor) had worked with,” he explained. “We’ve been working with both sides” to find a way to make them compatible.

Steelman compared the problem to putting out a fire “when we’re not the fire department basically. We’re trying to come up with a solution because, right now, the software company is the only one that can actually have a solution to this” but has been unable to provide one, she said.

“I know everybody is extremely frustrated,” she said. “I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that everybody up here (on the board) is extremely frustrated. It’s been one roadblock after another and so many things have been out of our hands. That’s not an excuse, that’s the reality of it.”

The city didn’t make the decision blindly to go with the AMI system and pair it with Incode, she said. “We trusted the experts that told us it would work,” Steelman said. She called it unfortunate it turned into a mess, “but we’re doing our best to put the fire out. And we appreciate the people who have been extremely patient, beyond patient, who continue to treat the staff with respect and kindness when they call.”

Anyone with questions should contact city officials or call the utility office at 729-4117.

For more details, see next week’s issue of The Salem News.