The Bottom Line on Those Big DWP Bills

Six days a week Gustavo A. Vitale wears the uniform of his trade, a short-sleeved white shirt with an oval name tag--”Gus”--stitched over his heart. He runs an auto body shop and, if you visit his home in Chatsworth, you can only conclude that he runs it well. It’s a comfortable place, with room out back for a small swimming pool, a powerboat and three collectible automobiles.

Gus, 52, comes across as a no-nonsense kind of guy. He’s got a gruff voice and a head shaved as smooth as a bullet. The bottom line with Gus is just that: the bottom line. And that is why he hates to open envelopes from the Department of Water & Power.

Like the bill he got last summer, charging the Vitale household $643 for the two-month period from July 11 through Sept. 8. Meanwhile, the body shop--with all its air compressors, welding machines, heat guns, buffers and no fewer than 53 fluorescent lights--got a bill for $493.

“Outrageous,” Gus says.

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It’s a common reaction, even among customers who can’t compare a residential bill to a commercial bill. Dread of the DWP is especially acute in the San Fernando Valley, where the hotter climate carries with it a kind of hidden lifestyle tax. More water is used to keep the lawns green and more electricity is used to keep the indoors cool.

Making the bills more painful is the staggered rate system, designed to promote conservation, that imposes a higher rate on heavy users. Then there are the non-DWP charges--the city utility tax, the sanitation equipment charge and, worst of all, the sewer service charge. The sewer charge alone has soared more than 400% since 1987. All are reasons some Valleyites have received DWP bills as high as $900, surpassing mortgage payments.

James M. Derry, the DWP’s director of customer services, has been fielding complaints for years. Explaining the ins and outs of DWP bills is no easy task over the phone. So we arranged to meet one recent day at the Vitale home.

Derry brought along Fred A. Herrera, a conservation specialist, to audit the household, and Gay Emans, a billing specialist, to answer questions about charges. Herrera’s analysis found that Vitale’s family--Gus, his wife, a son who lives at home--was already using slightly less power than most such families in such homes. Still, Herrera found potential savings by cutting back the hours on the pool pump and by unplugging a second refrigerator in the garage.

A chart showed the Vitales’ water use sharply jumped last summer, contributing to the $643 bill. Some increase would be expected, but this seemed high. When Herrera checked the timer on the automatic sprinkler system, he thought he found out why. The system, which had been shut off since the recent rains, was set to operate 10 minutes daily. This surprised Gus, who thought the system was running every other day. Apparently, the setting had been changed. Derry, meanwhile, suggested that every third day probably would suffice.

Herrera also suggested Vitale replace his old toilets with low-flow models. “You know,” he said, “we give you $100 if you change these.”

Gus had a quick response: “I changed the shower heads--and it didn’t make a bit of difference in the bill.”

Later, Derry, Herrera and Emans crunched numbers. Gus’ focus was on the line that begins “PLEASE PAY THIS AMOUNT NOW DUE.” Derry pointed to the sewer charge, which alone accounted for $108 of that $643 bill.

“That’s what’s gone up,” Derry said. “Unfortunately, it’s on our bill. We’re just the collection agency.”

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Derry may be excused for the defensive tone. The goal here is not to bash the DWP, but to comprehend those damned bills. The sewer rates have soared, Derry explained, because of the city’s need to overhaul a deteriorating system that was fouling the Santa Monica Bay.

“It’s like the guy on the old Pennzoil commercial,” Derry says. “You can pay me now or pay me later. And when you pay later, you pay more.”

That, of course, applies to a lot of private and public matters--education, health care, law enforcement. We wind up paying for it one way or another--in lower quality or higher cost or sometimes both. Save money on schoolchildren and spend money on inmates. Property taxes are stable but sales tax is way up. In recent years, a wide majority of Los Angeles residents twice voted to hike property taxes to beef up the LAPD--but not the two-thirds needed for passage. Now Mayor Riordan wants to pay for more cops by siphoning millions from the DWP, the city’s big collection agency.

Whatever. Gus Vitale will keep dreading those bills. Even if Herrera showed him how he might use less water, even though he’s having other inspectors come by the shop, Gus figures to always be a tough customer.

“They play games,” he said.