Bossier Parish residents are seeing fluctuations on their water bills.
A new water billing system for Bossier Parish has experienced some glitches, giving some citizens a headache.
Bills for Bossier Parish’s Consolidated Waterworks/Sewerage District No. 1 moved to a new billing system in October of last year. And, the transition has been met with some difficulty.
Supervisor Shelbi Irby says that when the new billing system was switched over, she was told a former employee made the appropriate adjustments that were needed for a smooth transition. But, it seems that was not the case.
“A few months ago we switched to a new software program and during that time, prior to it being done, we were told by an ex-employee that everything was done. But, she did not do it,” Irby said. “So, we have been trying to diligently fix that.”
She did state that since the conversion, multiple issues have been popping up. Some customers have experienced late delivery of bills, charged amounts higher than usual, or even no bills at all.
“We found a lot of things that were not being done correctly prior to my taking over of the office, and we’re trying to get it ran properly the way it should be. Certain areas have different issues at the moment. We’ve had some issues with readings and customers being charged a higher amount than what they owe,” Irby said.
“Wer’e trying to fix years of back up in a few months to get everybody back to where they are supposed to be,” she added.
Due to billing not being correct, auto draft has been suspended until further notice.
“Due to the billing not being correct, we took everyone that was on auto draft and put their draft on hold until further notice,” Irby explained. “We do not want to draft a customer’s account with an incorrect bill.”
Irby did note that customers will soon receive a letter explaining what has happened and what is being done to correct the issue.
