I’ve heard so many stories from City Light customers over the years about problems with their electricity bills. Sometimes, it’s perfectly understandable — someone along the line made an error, and it’s a quick fix. But late last year, I discovered hundreds of City Light customers failed to get their electricity bills because of an error caused by something or someone no one can seem to identify. And most recently, City Light presented to City Council its plan for catching up on a MASSIVE backlog of billing issues— all by the start of March.
I talked to one customer, Rena Patel, who described to me moving to a home in Seattle in the summer of 2016. She and her family were astounded when they saw their bills.
“Every two months our bill was three to five times higher than we had previously paid,” she said. “We had overpaid so much in just three billing cycles that my calculation is we wouldn’t have to pay for another year and a half.”
But Rena is organized, focused, and would not be exhausted by the numerous calls she had to make to City Light straighten this out. She finally though it was resolved.
“Then comes October 2017 and we get another bill from Seattle City Light for over a thousand dollars!” she said. “This issue happening to me made me realize that it’s probably happening to others.”
She was right— City Light is facing a LOT of backlogged billing issues. Thousands, in fact. I found that out straight from the woman in charge of making irate customers happy: Director of Customer Care Kelly Enright.
“I think when I looked at it today, there’s roughly 14,000 errors in bills right now, over all of our customers,” Enright said when she sat down with me.
“What would be your message to them, directly?” I asked.
“My message to them is first, I am sorry,” she said. “Personally for me, running this area, I’m embarrassed.”
Enright told me City Light has hired new, temporary employees to help staff reduce the backlog, and has also moved some employees from the collections and disconnections team to work on billing problems. People are no longer getting disconnection notices, she said.
Enright pointed to SPU and City Light’s New Customer Information System (NCIS, not to be confused with the primetime TV crime show). The system launched in 2016 and she said employees are still acclimating. Really?
“Why is that happening more than a year later?” I asked.
“Because you have to remember, they were using a system that was 20 years old,” she said. “If you’re not used to technology changes, it still takes time. There are a number of business processes that actually became more complicated.”
Patel was incredulous.
“It takes almost two years for your company to adjust to a new billing system? That is not an acceptable reason,” she said.
Why else is City Light so behind?
Enright also cited the growing population putting a strain on City Light, with more and more accounts being opened, and said the fall is their busiest time because of college starting and students opening new accounts.
As for Patel, Enright calls it a “process issue” that caused the giant bills. Patel explains she found out her first bill was an estimation by City Light, not a real read by a meter reader, so after that, the software decided the real reads with lower usage levels didn’t make sense.
I asked Enright if the “process issue” affecting Patel’s account has been fixed. She said they’ve “reworked the process to minimize it from happening again.”
You can see the full video of my story here on the KIRO 7 website– shoot me a message if you’ve had problems with City Light bills, too!
LINZI SHELDON 
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