Jackson Free Press

The Jackson Public Works Department sent out half a million dollars' worth of water bills Thursday, the first time it has used the automated billing systems included in the Siemens contract.

"Today we were able to get thousands of bills out using automated reads, Public Works Director Kishia Powell said during a "Take A.C.T.I.O.N." meeting at the M.W. Stringer Grand Lodge last night. "These are real reads from people's meters, and we billed today $563,000 of bills. So our revenue will be improving."

Powell said the department has about 45,000 of the newly installed automatic meters included in the Siemens contract. "And that's huge, because we were (billing) some days at $60,000 and some days at $100,000. In order for us to meet our revenue targets we have to get close to $600,000 a day," she said.

"So just today we have made substantial improvement," Powell said.

Powell said that Jackson residents have not received a bill in several months will receive one with multiple billing periods on it for water, sewer and sanitation. "We are asking that you pay your current amount due, and if you need assistance paying what has accrued over the couple of months when you have not received a bill, we will make payment arrangements for you," she said.

Customers concerned about their bill call the department's business office at 601- 960-2000.

"We are not charging late fees during this period of time because it is no fault of our customers," Powell said.

Powell herself will send letters to customers with billing explanations, as well as make YouTube videos and other resources available on the city's website, JacksonMS.Gov.

The City's issues with water billing has been a sore subject for the administration, including at the Jackson City Council's April 18 Budget Committee meeting.

Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote said it was crucial for the City to deal with the issues it faces with water and sewer revenues to generate the capital the budget requires. "But we need to get beyond that and get the money," Foote said about the glitches.

"There are people that are begging for a water bill that have not received one for months," Ward 7 Councilwoman Margaret Barrett-Simon said. "We have a very serious problem, and its just bizarre to me and something that appears to be so simple can't be fixed."

Powell said during both meetings that her staff struggled to meet the workload that the current problems place on her department.

"And as soon as we get beyond this hump with Siemens and everything else, we will be much better," Powell said last night. "The very limited team, and I mean limited in numbers because their capacity is huge otherwise, we would not have made the progress we have made. We don't sleep."

The public-works director said the automatic billing gives the City the change to catch up on other meters not responding. "There was no way they were going to be able to keep up with manually entering those bills," Powell said about difficulties with the switch over to the new billing system.

During the April 18 Budget meeting, Ward 6 Councilman Tyrone Hendrix asked if Powell had ever received responses to requests she had made over the last several months for a financial manager to oversee the day-to-day operation and transfer of funds in her department.

"We have been trying to work with Human Resources since December, January to get a finance manager," Powell said. "We were told this last week that we need to get permission from Finance, Administration. So I sent an email with a request."

Powell said her department needed one for the last year, but that the administration had not budgeted for the position.

Gus McCoy, chief administrative officer for the City, said the administration had made several budget cuts and that each department had to find the funds within their "own pots" to afford any new additions.

"We are working with Public Works now to make sure that we get the needed staff in place to track these funds," McCoy said at the Monday Budget Committee meeting.

"She has been requesting this ... since at least December 2015," Hendrix said in response. "We know this is a critical role. The Council has been requesting someone to oversee these funds."

"The administration has found creative ways to fund other, less critical positions, and I don't understand why we have not advertised for this position, yet," Hendrix continued. "Stuff like this doesn't make any sense."

"You have a pot of money," McCoy answered, "and you look at that pot, and you can identify the funds for those things then we have no problem with bringing those people forward."

Email city reporter Tim Summers, Jr. at [email protected]. See more local news at jfp.ms/localnews.