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Germantown board to send supplemental bills after software misapplied summer sewer credit to 1,600 accounts
Summary
Village officials decided to send separate bills to about 1,600 residential accounts after a Tyler Munis billing error applied a summer sewer credit incorrectly; board asked staff for stronger checks and wrote public notice.
The Germantown Village Board on Feb. 3 agreed to send separate supplemental bills to roughly 1,600 residential accounts after a software error inadvertently applied a summer sewer service credit to fourth-quarter 2024 utility bills.
Village administrator told the board that no one was overbilled but about 1,600 households were underbilled, “most of them by less than $50.” The board accepted a recommendation from the Utility Advisory Committee to generate separate bills to collect the differences and to send a letter explaining the mistake.
The decision followed staff briefings and tests with Tyler Munis, the village’s financial and billing software vendor. Administrator said Tyler Munis copied the village’s instance into a test environment, reran the billing cycle and, to date, has been unable to reproduce the exact error. The vendor also provided configuration changes and additional verification methods staff can use going forward.
Trustee Leslie Kaminski moved to accept the Utility Advisory Committee recommendation and create the separate bills “as soon as possible,” and the motion was seconded and approved unanimously.
Finance and utility staff described a multi-step manual-check protocol to reduce recurrence: pull many sample bills for manual recalculation, have the utility billing clerk and at least one additional staff member verify calculations, and add one more pre-mailing review step by another staff member. Staff emphasized that the issue affected residential accounts only and not commercial or industrial customers.
Board members pressed for stronger safeguards. Trustee Jan Miller asked whether industrial or commercial accounts were affected; staff said the summer sewer credit applies only to single-class residential customers. Trustee Bob Warren warned that being unable to identify the root cause harmed credibility and asked which other municipal functions used Tyler Munis; staff replied it is used for utility billing, finance, human resources and payroll, while property taxes run through the county portal.
Staff estimated the supplemental bills could go out in a couple of weeks; most shortfalls were under $50, though some individual accounts were undercharged by higher amounts based on usage. The board directed staff to produce a public summary for the village website and social media explaining what happened and what will be done to prevent recurrence.
The vote to generate separate bills passed unanimously by voice vote.
