BILLINGS— The city of Billings has given a proposed timeline for shutting off water for delinquent accounts as community members are not paying water bills they feel are incorrect.
Gary Zacc, who is helping organize a group of unsatisfied water users, met Tuesday with City Administrator Chris Kukulski and Public Works Deputy Director Jennifer Duray, who told him the city will start charging late payment fees in December and turn off water services in January for property owners who do not pay bills or set up a payment plan with Public Works.
Watch to see how the community is investigating water bill confusion:
“There are a lot of elderly people that feel threatened and intimidated because they don't know where that money is going to come from that they're going to pay that bill with. They have medications. They have food they have utility bills to pay, and their money just doesn't go that far,” said Zacc.
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He is part of a group gathering data from community members who claim they were overcharged for their water bills after the city started using a new billing software.
Zacc said thousands of people disagreed with their bills last summer when the city introduced new software. Approximately 500 property owners have approached him with bill concerns, and that number is growing.
“There's just there's too much evidence when thousands of people can lay their bills over the top of each other and all of the patterns are the same. Things don't go crazy for three or four months and coincidentally when you were instituting a new software system,” said Zacc.
One property owner, Patrick Sala, received a bill for $408 in September last year. According to the bill, he had used 58,000 gallons of water in two months.
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“In two months as a single person, 58,000 gallons of water, in two months. I'll be honest with you; I don't know how that's possible,” said Sala.
Sala said he did not pay the bill until June, due to his limited income.
“I'm a 75-year-old man. I've got one heart attack under my belt. I'm on medication. I live on Social Security. And to pay a $408 bill is one quarter of my income for a month,” he said.
Zacc said he plans to seek legal counsel if the city refuses to acknowledge errors and reimburse property owners.
“There's so many easier ways to resolve the issue, but if it comes down to the point where we have determined that there's no other avenue, that they're just closing the door on it, they're gonna lock it, the only way to open it is by a court order,” said Zacc.
He said he is gathering evidence in the meantime.
“We would like to hear from anyone in buildings that has a third-party meter, which is basically a meter that runs at the same time that the city meter runs,” he said.
In February, the city completed an audit of water bills, which found few overcharges among the thousands of water users. While the auditors found more errors in the summer of 2024 after the billing change, they also stated that the city had fixed the majority of those problems by the beginning of the year.
Related: Completed Billings water audit says city not at fault for high bills
