City Councilman Ron Menor is calling for a management and performance audit of the beleaguered Honolulu Board of Water Supply.

Menor wants city Auditor Edwin Young to look into a variety of issues, including:

» The board’s recent switch to a monthly billing system that resulted in the doubling of service fees for ratepayers.

» The agency’s practice of estimated billing.

» Concerns regarding the efficiency of its strategic planning and operations.

Menor said he wants the audit to be conducted before the Council proceeds with a proposal to ask Oahu voters to strip the water board of some of its authority and transfer those powers to the Council. That initiative, introduced by Councilman Ikaika Anderson, was deferred by the Council at its meeting in August amid concerns raised by board leaders and their supporters.

It would ask voters in the 2014 election if they want to shift the final say over budgeting and land use policies from the semiautonomous BWS to the Council.

While he has reservations about the Council assuming more authority over the BWS and its policies, Menor said, an independent and objective analysis of the board’s operations would be beneficial. He introduced a resolution calling for the audit on Wednesday.

"My resolution is 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," Menor said. He said he’s hoping auditors will come up with recommendations on how to improve the agency’s efficiency and effectiveness.

Menor said he will support Anderson’s amendment only if the auditor’s study concludes that ceding more authority to the Council makes sense.

Ernest Lau, the board’s chief engineer, said in a release that he understands the concerns raised by Council members and promised to be cooperative with the auditor. Lau, in a separate written response to the Star-Advertiser, said, "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."

Lau has come out against Anderson’s charter amendment proposal, calling it unnecessary and a step back from the water board’s semiautonomous and apolitical roots. Board members are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the Council.

Lau acknowledged that some customers were frustrated by billing problems over the past eight months, adding that the need to temporarily estimate bills arose largely due to glitches in implementing a new billing system and the switch to monthly from bimonthly billing.

Lau said the extra charge was needed to cover existing and new expenses for maintenance, repair and replacement of customer meters and related costs.

To help resolve the problems, the agency has hired additional customer service and accounting employees.

If approved by the Council, the audit would be the second for the water board in the past decade. In 2006, an audit questioned the board’s ability to adequately devote resources to growing repair and maintenance needs while awarding salary increases and bonuses to BWS executives.

That audit made 16 recommendations, all of which were "either completed, resolved or dropped," Menor said in a news release.

The board supplies 145 million gallons of drinking water a day to more than 900,000 residents.