Audit needed to fix problems at water board

Bizarre monthly billings by the Honolulu Board of Water Supply have confounded residents with explanations that are inadequate. The apology, and remedies, offered by the board also have fallen short, and that’s what makes a proposed city audit of the agency welcome.

As proposed by City Councilman Ron Menor, city Auditor Edwin Young would delve into billing problems that have been plaguing the water agency, a situation that spiked in spring. The audit should put on hold a second, more drastic measure: that a proposed City Charter amendment be placed on the 2014 ballot for voters to give the City Council final approval of the board’s operating and capital improvement budgets.

Ernest Lau, the water board’s manager and chief engineer since February 2012, has acknowledged the spate of water billing problems and welcomes the proposed audit.

Among the issues ripe for audit: the board’s practice of estimated billing in a monthly system, a doubling of service fees for ratepayers, and the recalculation of estimated bills that resulted in massive confusion for customers.

For example, a Kailua customer recently received eight billings in a single envelope, four of which indicated money owed and four which showed a negative balance and advised the customer, "Do not pay."

"All adjustments to your account are based on actual readings taken from your water meter," stated the accompanying letter signed by Lau. In this case, the result was sticker shock: One of the bills concluded that the customer now owed an additional $324.

The water board approved a 70 percent rate increase in November to maintain and replace aging infrastructure, citing deferred maintenance. It then began billing every month instead of every other month, causing some irate customers to criticize the additional "billing charge" of $7.70 monthly instead of bimonthly. Another big source of problems has been the water agency’s transition to a $30 million automatic meter reading (AMR) system, which has been faulty due to maintenance and bad-battery issues. As many as 16 percent of 166,000 water customers complained when they began receiving bills in April based on bad estimates rather than actual usage.

Menor says his call for an audit was "in response to complaints that Council members have received from constituents about the new billing system, the increases in the billing charges and other issues related to the operations of the Board of Water Supply."

Lau has promised to be cooperative with the auditor, responding in a written response to the Star-Advertiser’s Gordon Y.K. Pang: "The proposed audit’s findings would provide a baseline of where we are at now and contribute to our ongoing efforts to improve the operations of BWS and our customer service and address aging infrastructure challenges."

Indeed, an audit of the water board is needed to help troubleshoot problems that continue to occur — without having to resort to the political question of putting water control in the hands of the City Council.