Albany utility staff report 88% AMI meter rollout; remaining exchanges slowed by access, safety and repair issues

Albany Utility staff told the Utility Board on an AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) progress report that the city has exchanged 78,720 of 89,831 meters — about 88% complete — and has roughly 11,111 meter exchanges remaining as the city works through safety, access and repair issues.

The update, delivered by Kendall Hodge, focused on the remaining workload by commodity and the operational and customer-notification steps staff are taking to finish deployment. “There is no opt out option, right, for receiving — for not receiving an AMI meter,” Hodge said, adding that the city is using certified letters, contractor support and targeted repairs to complete the program.

Hodge said the change in the total meter population from earlier figures (previously quoted as 91,947) reflects account scrubbing that removed inactive or abandoned meters from the exchange list. Staff reported commodity-level progress as follows: water — 38,861 accounts total, 32,718 exchanged (about 84% complete); the second commodity listed in the presentation had 16,165 accounts with 13,671 exchanges to date (about 85%); electric — 34,805 accounts with 32,331 exchanged (about 93%); overall completion was presented as about 88% as of the date of the report.

Staff described the remaining work as concentrated in a few categories: larger commercial meters that the utility itself must swap, meter cabinets in poor material condition that require customer-side repairs, and hard-to-access or unresponsive locations. For water specifically, staff said about 6,143 water meters remain; roughly 3,700 of those will be handled by a contracted water meter crew (H2O), with the utility completing the remainder. For gas and electric, staff said a mix of contractor and in-house work remains.

Meter-cabinet safety was a recurring theme. Hodge explained that meter cabinets are homeowner property while the meter itself is owned by the city; when technicians lift a meter they sometimes discover “bad” or deteriorated lugs and other conditions that pose a safety risk. He said AMI meters include safety features that will not be installed into a cabinet if hazardous conditions are present, and technicians leave a door card telling customers they have 15 business days to hire a licensed electrician. Hodge said the board previously approved offsetting customer meter-cabinet repair costs up to $800 and that, year to date, staff had identified 232 meter locations requiring repairs and approved invoices from roughly 210 customers.

“We’ve incurred approximately $143,311 of reimbursement expenses,” Hodge told the board. Angela Sowell, identified in the meeting as the city’s AMI system manager, and staff review invoices and engage contractors or customers before reimbursements are paid, Hodge said.

Customer access and refusals are another constraint. Staff said they mailed about 1,300 certified letters to customers at properties where multiple attempts had failed; of the certified letters that returned as received in the first mailing batch, staff reported 546 customers (71% of that batch) had responded and scheduled appointments. A portion of the letter recipients remain unresponsive; staff said those accounts may be eligible for service interruption if they do not schedule (staff reported a preliminary count of customers who could be eligible for disconnection and said they would make another outreach attempt before any interruption).

On enforcement and policy, staff told the board that although other utilities in the region have offered an opt-out option, Albany does not have an opt-out policy for AMI meters. Hodge said there had been earlier discussion about an opt-out policy but “no policy was ever developed.” The board and staff discussed legal and process steps before any disconnection would occur; city staff said they were consulting the city attorney and planned additional outreach and one more notice letter as a “good faith” step before pursuing interruptions.

Budget and schedule: the presentation showed a project budget of $22.6 million and a then-projected spend of about $23.3 million (a roughly $706,000 overrun). Board member Robert Brown (board member) told the board that the city amended the project budget in January by roughly $955,000, and that, after that amendment, the program is not currently over budget and is about $250,000 favorable against the amended total. Hodge cautioned that extending deployment increases operational costs and staffing demands; he said the remaining 12% of exchanges are the most difficult and could push work into late 2025 if done in-house without contractor support.

Staff also described technology and customer-service opportunities once deployment is complete: automated continuous-flow (possible leak) alerts, an online customer portal and a planned mobile app to allow customers to monitor hourly/daily usage, receive high-usage alerts and set consumption thresholds. Angela Sowell said automation can trigger notifications (text, email or phone) when the system registers continuous flow or out-of-range usage and that the portal and future app will offer usage history and how-to resources.

Board members pressed for clear processes before any disconnections and for documentation that the city attempted to notify customers. The mayor and other board members encouraged continued public outreach — staff listed town-hall meetings scheduled for the 19th and 20th (dates as stated in the meeting) to answer public questions and demonstrate portal features.

Votes at a glance: the only formal recorded vote at the start of the session approved the minutes from the April 10, 2025 meeting as presented. The motion to approve was moved and seconded; the roll call recorded five yes votes (Mister Burley, Miss Cahier, Miss Fields, Mister Woodall, and Chair Miss Woodall) and the motion carried.

Ending: staff said they will continue the outreach push, pursue contractor support for a tranche of remaining gas exchanges if needed, and return to the board with schedule, resourcing and any proposed policy changes before taking service-interruption action. Hodge and staff reiterated that completing deployment will reduce operational inefficiencies and improve billing accuracy once older AMR meters are removed from service.