Board of Estimates approves $12 million increase to UMAX billing contract; members press for collection gains

The Baltimore City Board of Estimates on Jan. 22 approved a $12,000,000 increase to the city's contract with Itineris NA Inc. for the UMAX customer information and billing system, an amendment city officials said is needed to cover system upgrades, extended technical assistance and to bring Baltimore County onto the platform.

The increase was described by Department of Public Works (DPW) and procurement staff as the sixth amendment since the contract began in 2014 and brings the aggregate contract value to more than $53 million. Director Lundy of DPW and a DPW representative said the UMAX system now runs cloud-based billing, provides near-real-time meter reads and supports leak detection and other analytics that the city lacked under its legacy system.

Why it matters: The UMAX system underpins billing, leak detection and revenue collection for the city's water, sewer and stormwater utilities. Board members pressed DPW and procurement for explanations of the contract's growth over time, the vendor's compliance with disadvantaged-business goals and the expected fiscal benefits of higher accuracy and stronger collections.

DPW representative (identified in the transcript as Mr. Garbark) explained the technical purpose of the contract and the reason for the request: "The UMAX billing system then took that, was able to manage the entire billing system, calculate all of the bills, and then generate those bills for us," the DPW representative said. Regarding data flow, the DPW representative said, "We get reads every day, all day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." He added that the city now achieves reads in the system for nearly all meters and has automated exception reporting to flag unusual usage for manual review.

DPW also gave collection context that board members asked for during debate. The department reported that roughly 94% of billed accounts pay in full each month (the department said industry averages are about 98%) and that targeted collections work on large commercial delinquencies yielded about $56 million recovered from roughly 46 accounts in the past year. The DPW representative told the board the system enables leak-alert notifications to customers and more precise billing, and that adding Baltimore County to the platform expands the system's scope and cost.

Procurement and compliance: Procurement staff said Itineris met the city's Women Business Enterprise (WBE) goal and initially reported a shortfall on Minority Business Enterprise (MBE) participation because a subcontractor change had not been properly registered in the city's SMB and Diversity system. Director Lundy said the outstanding compliance reporting was resolved late the previous night and that procurement has received confirmations that subcontractors are being paid; procurement recommended moving forward after the compliance check.

Board scrutiny: Multiple board members asked for market analysis and justification for repeated increases since 2014. The board's president noted the original contract bid and several subsequent amendments, and asked procurement and DPW to explain why the city has repeatedly amended the contract and whether alternative systems had been evaluated. DPW replied that UMAX remains the most feature-complete commercial option the city has identified and that it was an early adopter of the meter-to-cloud billing approach. DPW said the scope expanded over time from a software purchase to include extended technical support and system upgrades.

Action: The board voted by voice to approve the requested contract increase. No roll-call tally was given in the public transcript.

What was not decided: The board directed questions at staff but did not adopt additional procurement directives, independent third-party market reviews, or any new collection policy in this session. Procurement said it will continue its compliance monitoring of subcontractors and that DPW will pursue collection steps described during the discussion.

Ending: Procurement and DPW officials said they would provide follow-up materials requested by board members about market comparisons, a historical list of amendments and additional details on the scope of the increased work and costs.