Milwaukie staff outline shutoff process, assistance program and outreach plans

City staff presented the city's utility billing operations and assistance programs during a study session, describing how manual meter reads and current administrative tools feed into a monthly past-due and shutoff schedule and outlining options to increase enrollment in the Utility Assistance Program.

Michael Osborne, a city presenter, and Amy Rantis, who handles much of the customer outreach and past-due casework, walked the council through the monthly workflow, describing beginning-of-month past-due notices and calls, mid-month abnormal-consumption reviews and a third-Thursday shutoff process.

Osborne said the city still relies on manual meter readers and in-house auditing of their files. He described the effect of misreads and dead-meter checks on staff workload: "When meter readers read it, if it's a misread or a leak, then public works steps in, and then our staff goes out and has to take time out of their day to go and reread the meter or to look and see if there's a leak." He estimated roughly 15–20 rereads and 15–20 dead-meter checks some months.

The city uses Tyler Technologies for billing and an outside firm for printed statements and physical meter reads. Osborne said the city recently began sending e-statements and is at roughly 3,000 emailed statements; printed mailed statements remain near an estimated 4,000. He noted the capital cost to automate reads (advanced metering infrastructure) was discussed as a long-term option; staff cited an approximate capital figure on the order of millions and said the recurring cost of meter reading is over $100,000 per year.

What the shutoff process looks like

Staff described the series…