City proceeding with utility account audit

By LYNETTE SOWELL

Cove Leader-Press

The City of Copperas Cove is presently having an external audit conducted of its utility accounts with FATHOM, which has had a contract with the city since 2016 for its utility accounts.

“Active accounts fluctuate, however we are currently just under 14,000 (accounts),” said Kevin Keller, the city’s public information officer.

A third-party auditing firm, Austin-based Weaver & Tidwell, LLC, is performing the audit on just under 140 of those accounts. That’s 1 percent of the accounts, which is an auditing standard, according to Keller.

“The process has begun and is expected to be completed by the end of November 2018,” Keller said.

Depending on the results of the audit, the council could take further action.

“Audit results will be reported to City Council. A more in-depth audit could be ordered by City Council as they wish,” Keller added.

The audit, which costs $16,000 and is being paid for out of the city’s Water & Sewer fund, is occurring a little more than two years after the city entered into a 15-year contract with FATHOM with a “software as service” agreement to manage the nearly 14,000 in accounts.

Customer complaints have continued as far as billing goes, with place 2 city councilman James Pierce Jr. recently having complaints of his own. He posted on social media about the issue he had with his bill.

“Why does this keep happening to us? I have ACH with FATHOM so my bill gets paid automatically on the due date, so why did they draw it the day after the due date? To top it off, they sent me a disconnect notice and charged me a late fee! There definitely will be a friendly phone call Monday morning about this. These problems were supposed to be rectified! The interim city manager will be notified, also,” Pierce wrote. He also spent 37 minutes on hold, waiting for assistance.

Pierce later said that according to what he was told, the drafting error was due to a “bug” that occurred during a system update in July that took effect with August bills and that it delayed the bill collection for one day “for some strange reason.”

Local resident Crystal Antoine is another of a number of residents having issues with the way their payments are credited to their accounts.

“When called out on their mistakes, they offer no solution to fix their mistakes. This is getting worse and worse and this city really needs to do something,” Antoine said.

Antoine spent time on the phone and at her bank after receiving a disconnection notice, despite paying her bill on August 31. When calling FATHOM, Antoine learned that according to them, there was no record of her payment.

“I assured (the customer service representative) I did and referenced the email  I received from her company on 8/31/2018 at 9:22:03 p.m., that stated I made a payment in the amount of $148.92. She stated she did in fact see that payment, and now she was sure that I received the disconnection notice in error, but that she would further investigate.”

Antoine said she was then on hold for 27 minutes, after which the representative informed her that her payment was returned for insufficient funds on September 5. Antoine said that was impossible, because not only did she have sufficient funds but she had overdraft protection and she had heard nothing from her bank about a returned check.

“She stated that was the code that was showing,” Antoine said. “She stated she would submit a ticket and they would get back to me as soon as possible. I asked her if this matter would be taken care of prior to me being disconnected for nonpayment, despite the evidence I had showing I made the payment. She stated she was unsure and that to be safe, she recommended me making another payment.”

After that, Antoine said she went to her bank and verified there were no returned checks, but there was also no record of a drafted payment for her utility account. Antoine then contacted FATHOM again and asked for a supervisor, and told him she had a record from her bank that no payment had ever been drafted for her utility account. She also requested the company remove the returned check fee from her account and she would make the payment again.

“He placed me on another 15-minute hold and came back on and stated he misread the code and that I provided them with the incorrect payment information. I informed him my payment information is saved in my online account and they did not have any issues drafting from that in August. He stated I entered it incorrectly. I asked him to read me the information they had to verify this, and he refused. He stated that he would submit a ticket and his system would determine if the routing number or account number was entered incorrectly. When I stated this was unacceptable he stated that was their policy.

“He stated despite the fact that I had proof that I did not have a returned check, they would still impose the returned check fee unless his system finds that it was in error, then they would offer me a one-time courtesy and reverse the fee. When I asked him how he was doing me the courtesy of reversing a fee that shouldn't be on there in the first place he remained silent.”

The request for an external audit began as early as May 2018, when place 1 councilman David Morris called for a discussion on an audit of the city’s water meters due to resident complaints of increased bills and water usage. With the transition to FATHOM for management of the utility accounts in 2016 came installation of new “smart” water meters for all accounts.

At that time, Morris expressed his concern that citizens were continuing to experience water billing issues and he believed a third party audit of how much water is purchased versus what customers are billed, would benefit the city. Then on July 17, Morris called for an external financial audit of water accounts with FATHOM.

At its Sept. 18 meeting, the council directed Haverlah to move forward with hiring Weaver & Tidwell, the same firm which has conducted the city’s annual financial audit, to audit 1 percent of accounts managed by FATHOM.

For Pierce, the 1 percent audit is not enough accounts to audit, and he stated he preferred the percentage to be higher, and that FATHOM should incur the cost. He has also called for another town hall with FATHOM.

“They receive money from our city, and they should be held accountable for that, $60,000-plus a month they receive from our city. They should answer our questions,” Pierce said.