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PRESS RELEASE
Mayor Young Announces Changes to Water Billing - Meter Reading Operations
Changes to save customers $10 Million in first year, $50 Million over 5 years
BALTIMORE, MD. — Today, Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young announced immediate changes to the Department of Public Works' water billing - meter reading operations. It has become abundantly clear that the Department of Public Works Customer Service and Support Division cannot continue to sustain the current meter operations, which it depends upon to generate water bills.
“Our customers deserve accurate and timely water bills,” said Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young. "The fact that this continues to be an issue even after we invested in automated meters means that we must take further action to address the problem. Outsourcing meter reading and small meter installation and maintenance to a vendor with a wealth of expertise in this area will not only increase revenue but also reduce operational costs creating savings for our customers.”
The Department of Public Works Customer Service and Support Division has struggled for many years to provide accurate and timely meter reading, meter maintenance, and fieldwork documentation so that billing operations can produce accurate and timely water bills for Baltimore City and Baltimore County customers. The struggles continued even after the installation of automated meters in the City and the County, valued at approximately $150M. The automated meters are intended to minimize the need for meter reading, but issues have persisted regarding maintenance and installation errors, responsiveness, and overall problem-solving. As a result, the decision has been made to outsource meter reading and small meter installation and maintenance in Baltimore City and Baltimore County to Itron, a third-party vendor that has significant knowledge and experience in metering and the automated technology in use in Baltimore. Large meter installation and maintenance in Baltimore City and Baltimore County has already been outsourced for many years to various vendors and that will continue.
Mayor Young believes this change will bring about the following benefits:
- Improvement in meter reading and billing accuracy
- Improvement in timely bill production
- Increase in revenue
- Reduction in utility operational costs
The outsourcing will save the utility approximately $10 million a year and approximately $50 million savings over the 5-year term of Itron’s contract. These savings will be used to provide additional assistance to Baltimore City water customers as mandated by Council Bill 20-0626 Water Accountability and Equity Act.
As a result of this change, 63-meter operations employees will be laid off. The Itron contract does not require Itron to hire laid-off employees. The City will work with the affected employees to determine if there are other employment opportunities within the City.
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