City reports no increase in calls about electric bills

Reprinted with permission from the Claremore Progress. This article originally appeared on Jun 21, 2016. Support local journalism with a subscription or a day pass for $1.99 :)

Despite the many conversations on electricity and smart meters at recent community meetings and city council meetings, the utility department has not seen an increase of customers contacting the department to discuss billing concerns.

“At the end of the day, they need to call, they need to write. We will do an analysis of it and get back with them and talk with them about their bill. If it is a human error, it is a human error — if it is a meter error, we will figure that out. We will figure it out the best we can with the information we have. We will solve this problem one account at a time,” said Mayor Bill Flanagan. “If you have a concern about a bill, you have a place to go at the city.”

If a resident has a billing concern, it is imperative the utility department is contacted in one of the following ways:

• Email the utility office at utilitybilling@claremorecity.com;

• Contact utility office manager Felicia Burnett at 918-341-0456 ext. 150, or email her at fburnett@claremorecity.com;

• Contact Claremore Public Works Authority Director Larry Hughes by calling the utility department and asking to speak with Hughes, or emailing him at Lhughes@claremorecity.com;

• Write a letter, and drop it in the utility drop box located outside of the Claremore utility offices at 104 S Muskogee Ave, Claremore, OK 74017.

Letters or emails should include account number, name, question or concern, and contact information. Ask for an analysis or audit of the account in question in the email or letter.

Claremore resident Scott Durham visited the utility office on Monday. He received his billing history for the months of January through August for the last four years. He also signed up to receive a device to record his usage to further investigate his recent increases.

“I want them to show me what I use, and I am speeding up the process with the recorder to determine daily usage. It took about 30 minutes and Felicia was helpful in providing information that she had,” Durham said.

Durham said the utility office told him his meter has not been changed since 1961 and the new AMI meter could be measuring more accurately. He received his highest bill in four years in July, at $480. He is taking steps to investigate his usage and determine the cause of the increase. Other residents who have similar concerns should take similar steps to find a solution, city officials said.

The billing issues cannot be addressed if they are not presented to the utility office. Both Hughes and City Manager Jim Thomas said accommodations can be made for residents who cannot leave work or have other obligations preventing them from visiting the utility office during office hours.

“If you can’t come by, give us a call, let us know. We can do an analysis and call you back,” Flanagan said.

Flanagan said the smart meters will help the city over the long term by quickly identifying outages and problems, allowing the utility office to fix infrastructure based on priority and work more efficiently.

In the past, the city had a 12 percent loss on electricity revenue because of inaccuracy. Hughes said smart meters would reduce the loss and increase revenue.

“We are just asking people to pay for what they use,” Hughes said. “The more accurate the smart meters, the more we will be able to fight rate increases in the future.”

The city also wants to address the concerns of peak hour billing. While the city is in contract with GRDA, and the contract includes peak billing charged to the city, the residents are not charged by the city by measuring peak hours. The kilowatts per hour charge are based on total consumption in one 30 day period.

Commercial and industrial customers are the only customers charged for peak hours and demand. Residential customers are not charged for peak hours or demand.

City officials said they will need residential customers to participate in the process to be able to investigate any increases. Several variables make customer-to-customer and month-to-month comparisons difficult, therefore cases will continue to be investigated on a case-by-case basis.