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Pflugerville finance director outlines software conversions, debt strategy and utility billing fixes
Summary
Finance staff reported progress on a year of system conversions, debt financing for water and wastewater projects, and utility‑billing challenges tied to a recent software migration. Staff said the city has begun using WIFIA and TWDB loans and is moving toward electronic vendor payments and a Water Smart customer portal.
Tracy, director of finance, told the council the department has completed a year of major system conversions, is managing large low‑interest loans for water and wastewater infrastructure, and is addressing utility‑billing conversion problems that caused some delayed billings and elevated call volume.
Tracy said the city has 23 budgeted full‑time finance positions (17 finance, six utility billing) and is close to full staffing on utility billing. She described a conversion to a new enterprise financial system in October 2023 and a payroll/HR conversion in April 2024. The finance director said the city moved fixed‑asset tracking from spreadsheets into the ERP system and has consolidated cash accounts into a pooled cash structure.
On debt, Tracy said the city issued a 2024 Texas Water Development Board loan for wastewater infrastructure (described in the presentation as low‑interest) and drew its first WIFIA loan for water infrastructure. She explained WIFIA’s cash‑flow advantage: “With WIFIA, you only pay for the debt that you draw,” and noted the city plans multiple tranches for anticipated water and wastewater projects.
Utility billing staff have been handling a system conversion to Tyler (ERP) for utility accounts and billings; Tracy acknowledged there were “hiccups” during the migration including delayed or missed e‑bills, a third‑party IVR provider that would have required an expensive reconfiguration, and higher call volumes while staffing was partially reduced. She said the city is moving to use the ERP vendor’s integrated over‑the‑phone payment solution to reduce manual work and expects the transition to improve reliability.
The finance director reported operational volumes for the past year: roughly 498 purchase orders (about $22 million), 259 contracts (about $103 million), 13,000 purchasing‑card transactions (about $3 million), and about 5,000 accounts‑payable payments totaling roughly $221 million. Utility billing statistics presented included about 24,500 active utility customers and about 2,700 registrations on the Water Smart portal since its January 2024 go‑live.
Tracy said the city is pursuing further WIFIA tranches and two Texas Water Development Board applications for raw water line and water‑treatment plant financing. She described internal transparency work, including publishing budget vs. actuals using the budgeting software’s public module and posting debt‑obligation information on the finance page of the city website.
Council members asked operational questions about e‑billing and telemetry reliability for meter transmitters; staff acknowledged intermittent transmitter outages can cause apparent single‑day spikes in usage reports. Staff also described adding a phone queue, expanding staffing, and using IT to host a dedicated server to avoid timeouts when generating e‑bills.
No council action was taken during the presentation; staff said audits are underway and final annual financial reporting will follow completion of the audit.
