Burbank Stops Estimating Utility Usage by Computer

Responding to complaints, the Burbank City Council has halted a controversial practice of estimating utility usage by computer and ordered a return to the old system: billing 45,000 residential customers for the amount of water and electricity they actually use.

Effective immediately, city workers will resume reading meters every month. Meter readers will continue at least until June, when the city’s Public Service Department is expected to complete a final report on the best way to calculate residential utility bills.

“The estimating approach is not obviously working . . . There’s a lot of questions about this and the new council can wrestle with the policy issues at stake,” Councilman Robert Bowne said Tuesday, referring to two incoming council members who take office May 1.

City officials have faced strong criticism from residents since they began the estimates last year in an effort to save $164,606 in salary costs.

Instead of reading meters every month and charging customers accordingly, as it had for years, meters were read only every other month. The bills for the alternate months were estimated by computer.

Some residents, such as Rory Zipp, 48, were consequently left with bills either too high or too low, depending on the month.

“You don’t know what it’s like to live on a fixed income in the ‘90s,” Zipp told the council, adding that she now has to cut back on food in order to pay her utility bills.

By returning to the traditional way of calculating bills for the next three months, council members said they hope to give residents immediate relief and buy more time for the department’s head, Ron Stassi.

Last week, Stassi said he wanted to eliminate the estimates and bill customers every month based on bimonthly meter readings. But his proposal left some council members too confused to take any action.