City of Austin Council Message Board

In preparation for tomorrow's work session, Councilmember Troxclair wanted to post a summary of the administrative adjustment policy for unexplained high water usage. In response to hundreds of constituent calls, we have worked closely with the Austin Water Utility staff and the members of the Public Utilities Committee to put together this resolution. Based on similar policies in the City of Houston and the existing City of Austin leak policy, this resolution would create a one-time administrative adjustment for customers who have received a bill with water usage inconsistent with that customer's historical usage. A customer can only qualify for this adjustment once every 24-month period and only after Austin Water has thoroughly inspected the customer account and the customer has signed an affidavit.

Included in the Summary is more detail explaining how the program will be administered. CM Troxclair will be pulling the item for tomorrow's Work Session in case members have any questions to ask of staff.

Administrative Adjustment Policy Summary - http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 42346.docx

Thanks! - M

http://austincouncilforum.org/viewtopic ... ater#p1467

CM Colleagues,

I am a co-sponsor of this Resolution because I'm still interested in a solution to the unexplained water bill spikes.
Please see the link above -- I proposed a similar Resolution, and let me copy the legal opinion and my notes in response to that:

"...charges for service rendered cannot be reduced or changed in the absence of demonstrated factual or procedural error in a given case", I wish to concur in general with this opinion. Currently we cannot tell the difference between a meter reading based on someone actually using 200% more water, versus a meter reading showing 200% based on some kind of error. The point of the Resolution was to remove a profit incentive for Austin Water which exists as an unintended consequence of the higher tiered water bills.