Richland staff demos 'My Account' utility portal; council raises data and translation concerns

City staff demonstrated a new utility customer portal called "My Account" designed to consolidate billing, usage data, service requests and customer communications for Richland utility customers.

Drew (city staff) led a live demo of the portal’s test site, showing account creation, the dashboard, the ability to link multiple meters, usage charts and customizable alerts for bills, leaks or consumption thresholds. He said the portal lets customers create accounts tied to existing account numbers, view historical usage, download bills as PDFs and enroll in paperless billing or autopay. Drew described the portal as a security and privacy improvement compared with the previous practice of exchanging documents by email.

"This is a big upgrade from a security and privacy standpoint for us because up to this point, a lot of material that's transmitted between customers and customer service is done via email," Drew said during the demonstration.

Key features demonstrated: • Account creation that links to the customer account number printed on bills and consolidates multiple meters under a single profile. • A dashboard with usage graphs (electric and water), billing history, thresholds and customizable alerts by email or text. • One‑click options for paperless billing and autopay and an in‑portal PDF of the monthly bill. • Service‑request forms that adapt to the request (for example, a water leak adjustment) and allow file uploads to attach supporting documentation. • Administrative features for customer service staff to view queues and respond without exchanging documents by email.

Staff said the city is preparing user guides, short how‑to videos and a communications plan that includes postcards, a bill insert and kiosks with staff assistance in the lobby and at an RCC location during after‑hours to help customers create accounts. The planned go‑live window discussed in the meeting was the week of Oct. 27 (test site shown during the workshop; the mobile app could not be fully demoed from the test site), with a public launch communication campaign surrounding that date.

Council members and staff asked several technical and privacy questions during the demo. Concerns and clarifications raised at the meeting included: • Data hosting and ownership: staff said the portal is provided by a vendor integrated with the city’s Advanced/CIS utility billing system and that the vendor hosts the portal in the cloud; staff said the data are city data and that standard contract language addresses data access and ownership but they would confirm the cloud/on‑prem details. (Staff committed to follow up with the council on the hosting model.) • Third‑party translation services: Council members flagged that the portal’s language selector relied on a free translation service (Google Translate) and questioned whether user content or personal information could be sent to a third party and used to train large language models. Staff acknowledged the concern and said they would investigate implementation details and whether personal account information could be sent to the translation service. • Backups and contingency: council members asked whether the city maintains backups or other contingency options in the event of a vendor outage or data breach; staff said contracts and current arrangements are intended to preserve city access to data and that they would confirm backup arrangements.

City staff also noted several future policy topics connected to the portal rollout, including merchant/credit‑card fees (staff said the city currently pays a substantial share of those fees and plans to return with options for recouping some costs), potential prepay options, code changes to deposit and leveling/averaging options for utility billing, and expanded alerts such as time‑of‑use or high‑demand notifications.

To help customers who lack devices or need assistance, staff said the city will provide staffed account‑creation support at city hall and the RCC and evaluate additional locations. Staff repeatedly emphasized plans for extensive communications and step‑by‑step videos and promised follow‑up answers on the translation and hosting questions.

(See provenance for transcript excerpts.)