Richmond utilities director outlines billing system overhaul and payment hiccups; disconnections paused

Director Morris of the City of Richmond Department of Public Utilities gave a detailed briefing on the department’s customer information and billing modernization, describing a migration to a cloud‑hosted customer information system (Project Synergy) that went live on May 26 and replaces a four‑decade legacy platform.

"This replaces an old, legacy system about 40 years old," Director Morris said. He outlined expected benefits: a customer portal for real‑time meter reads and self‑service, automated billing calculations, easier field‑service scheduling, reduced training time for call agents and faster response to leaks and other high‑consumption events.

Morris said implementation work began after a 2022 needs assessment and a vendor selection in August 2024; the system went live over the May holiday weekend to allow additional transition time. He told the committee the new dashboard consolidates account data and built‑in rate history so technicians need not make manual adjustments for mid‑period rate changes.

The director also detailed operational metrics: roughly 36,000 of the city’s approximately 51,000 meters have been updated, leaving about 15,000 meters at or near a 15‑year replacement threshold; billing estimates have fallen from about 131,100 in FY23 to roughly 77,355 currently; and baseline bill accuracy is near 98% with a multi‑year goal toward 99.5%. The department said it closes about 2,600 issue tracks per month on average.

Morris described a set of implementation problems that have directly affected customers. He said the software vendor required the city to change account numbers, which confused customers accustomed to memorized bill numbers, and that a mid‑integration payment processor unexpectedly switched servers (from Canadian to U.S. servers), which left payments stuck in the queue. "That was a challenge in and of itself to find out what was going on, and also to fix it," Morris said. He estimated that about 15,000 payments were affected by that queue issue.

To limit harm, the city removed late fees associated with affected accounts, updated an online account‑lookup tool, issued communications via social media and bill inserts, and temporarily paused disconnections and the flow‑restriction campaign while DPU verifies accounts. Morris said DPU has added guardrails for flow restrictions: accounts with active payment plans or active issue tracks are excluded and a 100% verification process was implemented before field crews install restrictors.

Council members thanked the director for progress on audit recommendations and pressed for additional consumer protections and vendor accountability. One council member reported receiving 34 constituent DPU issues since June 1 and asked what the city could communicate beyond frequently‑asked questions; Morris responded that disconnections were paused and that corrected billing data will appear on the next billing cycle. Morris said he will consult procurement about possible contractual remedies.

The department plans to bring a customer portal online in the fall, continue AMI pilot work and implement a steady meter‑replacement cadence (about 1/15th of meters annually) to avoid future mass failures. Morris said platform and cellular connectivity costs remain the largest open budget items for AMI and that specific quotes were not yet available.

Next steps: DPU will continue account reconciliations, provide updates to council and follow up with procurement on vendor issues.