BEAUMONT, Texas — Some Beaumont residents may have to pay extra for their April 2024 water bill this month due to an error that occurred in the city's billing system software in November 2022.
Beaumont residents affected may notice an additional one-time charge of $22.25 for regular customers or $20.02 for seniors.
"I work in the hospice field and I go into a lot of homes of elderly people and that $20 is like a million dollars to some people," said Beaumont resident Terry Roy.
The additional charge comes from an unbilled garbage collection fee for services rendered between November 2022 and August of 2023, according to the city. Affected residents now have to repay the city over $500,000.
"That's why it's hard for me to believe it. You're talking about a half a million dollars that's unaccounted for," said Roy.
Roy is concerned about people who are on a fixed income.
"You got to choose between medicine, food or bills and that's what it comes to," said Roy.
The City of Beaumont switched the water billing schedule from a 20-day billing period to a 30-day billing period back in November of 2022. This decision was made in order to give customers 30 days to pay their monthly utility bills.
"Back in November of 2022 we attempted to go from a 20-days billing cycle, to a 30-day billing cycle," said Chief Financial Officer Cheryl Ray. "Unfortunately, our software didn't really allow that. It took us a couple of months to notice the change."
This payment extension caused a problem in the billing system. The system could not keep up with the switch. As a result, some accounts were not billed every calendar month.
"We did put an insert in the bills for March to let everyone know that they would be incurring an extra fee in April," said Ray.
Once the problem was identified, the city made the switch back to the the previous billing schedule, which took effect in August 2023.
12News inquired about why it took the city a year to notify the public about the costly error.
" I think we were more focused on trying to get the logistics of getting the bills out correctly," said Ray. "But in hindsight we probably should've let everybody know sooner."
All cycles at some point from November 2022 to August 2023 were not charged the flat rate garbage fee for one month, according to the city.
All accounts have been moved back to the original 20-day billing period in order to avoid the error from occurring again.
This extra charge only affects those who had active service between November 2022 and August 2023 and currently have active service with the city.
Residents who moved will not be charged.
"There's really no way for us to bill those people," said Ray. "So, unfortunately that's part of what we lost by not being quicker to the draw, on figuring out what's going on."
Residents can find the month that wasn't billed in the bill line item that has the month and year of the missed charge.
The additional payment is labeled as "missed Ga charge" with the specific month missed.
It is against state law for a government entity to give services away for free, which is why the city cannot dismiss the charge.
"It would be detrimental to the city by far to allow this money to go uncollected," said City Councilman Mike Getz. "If we were to not receive this revenue, we would have to go up on your water bills."
For more information or to create a payment plan for the extra fee, contact water customer service at 409-866-0023 or 3-1-1.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.