Special Public Meeting Held To Focus On New Wave Of DWP Billing Issues

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A City Councilman has called a special meeting Wednesday to address concerns that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's billing system is causing a new wave of problems.

Councilmember Felipe Fuentes and other members of the Energy and Environment Committee were hearing from the Department of Water and Power's departmental response team about several issues, including complaints that from people who say they were over-billed, sometimes by as much as hundreds of dollars.

Fuentes told KNX 1070's Dick Helton that although some progress has been made with billing and customer service response systems, he wants to stop any backsliding that could lead to bigger problems down the road.

"We're having continued problems with the customer service line and that folks are having to wait up to several hours to be able to make contact with the department," said Fuentes. "We still don't have a good sense as to how accurate the billing has been."

Nearly 40 new customer service representatives are scheduled to start working in September, according to Fuentes.

Following the launch of the DWP Customer and Billing System Dashboard earlier this year, customers received inaccurate bills and sometimes even no bills at all. The rollout resulted in more than $300 million in revenue shortfalls.

Months later, it appears customers are experiencing similar problems.

"It's time the DWP gives us answers. We need to know how the utility is resolving this billing problem," said Councilman Fuentes. "Customer confidence is falling. We must restore customer confidence in the utility as we fix this issue."