KY3 asks Salem, Mo. city leaders about continued utility billing issues more than year after upgrade - KY3

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SALEM, Mo. (KY3) - For almost two years KY3 has covered utility billing concerns out of Salem, following a major system upgrade that was announced back in 2019.

The billing issues started in November of 2019, when the city decided to spend $1.4 million to replace roughly 4,700 water and electric meters across town.

“This has been a process years in the making that people have put blood, sweat and tears into,” said east ward alderman Kimberly Steelman. “All the intentions were great. We’re all excited to be on the other end of it.”

Tuesday night, the board of aldermen held a meeting where they addressed a few people’s concerns.

Since then, many living in the area have shared similar stories. In some cases, bills reached several thousand dollars. Many have also told us their bills have been inconsistent and more than what they normally pay.

“This bill is absolutely astronomical,” said Sara Baldwin.

We spoke with her before the meeting.

“And so we have to figure out something, and I need help to figure out what’s going on. And I need answers,” she said.

Baldwin addressed her concerns about her recent bills, which have surpassed $2,000. Those bills were for her home she had not been living in during the billing period. She says the property was vacant. Additionally, she says there were no leaks or issues. She says she does not understand how her bill for that home could possibly be that high.

“If they can’t give me proof at the city utilities office, and they point me here [to the Board of Alderman meeting], it seems like they should be able to answer my questions and I shouldn’t have to come out here and get a babysitter and do all of these things,” Baldwin said. “But if this is what it takes it has to happen, because the whole town is suffering from this. It’s not just me.”

The city has admitted the upgrade did not go as planned. City leaders previously told KY3 some issues were connected to the pandemic.

Bills listing months of service are delivered to customers at one time. Steelman says this is connected to city efforts to get caught up.

“We’ve been three months behind on billing as long as I’ve been in office,” she said. “And I’ve been in office since 2016. That was due to the fact that we had to manually send two to three people out to read everybody in town’s meters, then enter all of that into the computer.”

Steelman said the point of the new system was to have up-to-date billing.

“Unfortunately that comes with time catching up,” she said.

When asked why the issues still remain almost two years later, City Administrator Ray Walden said he does not believe any billing issues are connected to the meters.

“To date I am not aware of instances where it can be definitively attributed to a faulty meter,” Walden said. “There may have been leaks. The newer meters may be more accurate than the previous. Their consumption may have changed, in all fairness. Or some combination of all three. If we have reason to believe the meters weren’t doing an accurate read, then we do an adjustment accordingly.”

Still, many residents in Salem have argued their numbers do not add up and that their bills do not seem accurate.

Walden says the city can still try and address those issues when citizens come to meetings.

“Usually we are able to resolve them,” he said. “You saw a couple of examples this evening, where if given the chance, we can check the meter reads in question. If there was an issue with erroneous readings, we’ve done adjustments on accounts.”

Steelman said she understands many have been frustrated throughout the process, and admitted one of the biggest flaws has been communication and transparency.

“It seems like if anything could go wrong it has gone wrong,” she said. “I think there’s definitely things that we as the city could’ve done much better, as far as communicating the things that were going on. But I am confident in saying that I think that was our biggest failure is just the communication aspect of it, which is an important aspect of it, but a lot of times we were working with the best information that we had. We were trusting the experts that we hired.”

Utility shutoffs were pushed back to July 15, after originally being scheduled for July 1. City leaders say the billing is caught up now after the most current invoices were sent out last week.

Meantime, a group of people in Salem started a petition for a state audit back in mid June.

KY3 has reached out to the state auditor’s office to get an update on that situation.

To report a correction or typo, please email digitalnews@ky3.com

Copyright 2021 KY3. All rights reserved.

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KY3 asks Salem, Mo. city leaders about continued utility billing issues more than year after upgrade - KY3
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