Phone Books, Public Hearing #2, Public Safety, and 2020 City Population

Phone Books, Public Hearing #2, Public Safety, and 2020 City Population

Hello Copperas Cove! This meeting covered everything from citizens concerned with the current state of safety in our neighborhoods to the Chamber of Commerce giving its quarterly update and request for funds.

The Council:
Mayor Diaz-Present
Joann Courtland-Present
Fred Chavez-Present
Dan Yancey-Present
Jay Manning-Present
Dianne Campbell-Present
Marc Payne-Present
Jack Smith- Present

Workshop Link

Council Agenda Link

Workshop Notes:
During the workshop, Ryan Haverlah recognized Silvia Rhoads for her retirement after serving Copperas Cove for 20 years, most recently as Staff Accountant.  She's also contributed heavily to "Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful" and was presented with an appreciation award from the group.

From there, they started a final workshop review of  the 2020 Comprehensive Plan. The city has been working on updating this plan extensively during the past 6 months, covering all chapters of the plan. These chapters  cover:
-Future Land Use
-Housing Strategies
-Community Image & Urban Design
-Parks, Recreation, and Open Space
-Government Facilities and Services
Next, the plan will go to Public Hearing during normal Council Meeting.

Regular Council Meeting:
During the announcements, Fred Chavez reminded the public that this weekend is the Polar Bear Plunge and 5K at city park. He's planning on participating in both and encourages the public to come support the event! February 1st will be the "Superbowl of Caring"

Citizens Forum:
-Mark brought forth a petition asking for the city to provide better street lights, more stop signs, and  speed bumps throughout Copperas Cove.
-Jayme Sigler said she ran for City Council during the last election with the main concern being for street safety, more sidewalks, and better lighting. She only received excuses for why the city isn't putting in more improvements such as the street lights are installed and maintained by the electric company, the sidewalks are put in by the contractors, and the city can't force citizens to install sidewalks on their properties. Along with these excuses for not giving the citizens more sidewalks and better lighting - our roads are falling apart, and we have no safe parks in the city. None of our parks are completely fenced in, and because of this she doesn't feel like we can let our children play in the parks without them running out in the streets and getting hit by traffic. She went on to reiterate that we have inadequate sidewalks and street lights, and if the City Council doesn't act, any future accidents will be due to their negligence. After all, this is supposed to be the city built for family living, and we need to be looking after our families. She did clarify that this has nothing to do with her losing the election and is all about her wanting to make our city safer for the families that live here.
-Michelle Adkins with the Utilities Department wanted to publicly thank the Public Works and Solid Waste Directors for sending over people to temporarily help the Utilities Department with handling the phones. The few people they were able to spare have made a tremendous impact on the operations of the Utilities Department Customer Service.
-Jessica brought forward her public safety concern for people and animals in Copperas Cove. Since she's been here, she's only seen 1 speed limit sign. She also noted the few street lights we have use the dim yellow lights so it's still hard to see out at night. That combined with there being no sidewalks led to an incident where she busted her head open on a curb one night because she couldn't see where she was going. We need to think about the disabled people trying to navigate the streets at night, but really we need to think about all people because we're all in this together. She is also concerned about the creek behind her fenced in back yard. She's worried that her children might find their way to the creek and drown in it one day. She's also worried about the snakes because they're all over the place and some of them are poisonous. There are a lot of dangers around here and she would like to see the city address as many of them as possible.
- Siggi brought up that even in the newer developments, they only have 1 sidewalk per street instead of a sidewalk on both sides of the street. She talked to a contractor about this and was told they do this per city code, so the council should address city code for side walks and street light spacing/brightness. As a closing note, she mentioned that we should take care of safety before the golf course, and these should have been addressed before the golf course put in a new sidewalk.


Public Hearing:

1. The council held its second public hearing and action on an ordinance amending the FY19-20 Budget. With no council discussion or public comment, this reached a PASS 7-0 vote.

2. For the next public hearing, Joanne Courtland recused herself from the item and left the room due to the request being submitted by Councilwoman Courtland and her husband for "Operation Stand Down", which they both run. He is requesting to rezone a property from R-3 (Multifamily Residential District) to B-4 (General Retail District), locally known as 201 & 203 Carpenter Street, Copperas Cove, Texas. They are planning on using the property to construct a 4500 sq ft storage warehouse and office space for Operation Stand Down Central Texas. The site will have adequate parking and space available for two offices and a donation drop off area within the warehouse building. The applicant will be submitting for a minor re-plat to combine the two existing parcels into one parcel once this rezoning application is approved. Once the minor re-plat is approved and recorded, then building permits can be issued for construction. The applicants agent briefly approached the podium to take questions regarding the rezone, with no questions being brought up. Johnathan Haywood came forward and spoke very strongly in support for how much Operation Stand Down supports the local veterans and community, and that we need to take care of them as not to run them off to another city. With that, the council voted to PASS 6-0 Editorial Note: After the council meeting, it was brought to our attention that the Courtlands purchased the property from a senior member of the city staff in August 2019. It is listed in the supporting documents from the P&Z meeting in December 2019. Here is the link to view it: 201 & 203 Carpenter  LOOK ON PAGE 5

3. Bobby Lewis (Development Service Director) brought forward action to approve the final edits of the 2020 Comprehensive Plan. Dale Treadway (Chairman of the P&Z), on behalf of the P&Z, took a moment to thank Bobby for his help in bringing this together. There has been over a year of work put into making this happen and for one last change, Dale requested that the prior Chairman of the P&Z be listed on the final draft as well since he was Chairman during the majority of the work. The council obliged to his request and voted to PASS 7-0 the 2020 Comprehensive Plan.

Action Items:

1. The Chamber of Commerce presented their Quarterly Presentation and request for reimbursement of funds. Alicia Menard (President - Chamber of Commerce) gave the presentation which covered a broad range of topics. To start, she went into the Chamber of Commerce mission statement and how funds are used. They have a new website coming, and are running multiple ads out showcasing the CoC events as well as local public events hosted by other parties. They are also bringing in conferences, trade shows, and events to the Civic Center in addition to going to events in other cities to promote what Copperas Cove has to offer. She said they even gave out 351 Phone Books! After reviewing the 1st quarter FY20 stats and analytics, they requested a reimbursement amount of $10,321.  PASS 6-0 (Chavez had to step away for a phone call)

2. Ariana Beckman (Director of Budget) presented an amendment to the Hotel Occupancy Tax policy concerning language related to the amount being requested by outside agencies. The motion struck out the 25% requirement leaving not revenue requirement to qualify for HOT funds. The just need to promote tourism. With little discussion regarding clarification among the council, this reached a PASS 6-0 (Chavez had to step away for a phone call).

3. The City intends to finance the funds for the purchase of  Mobile Data Terminals and applicable accessories for the police department to replace current equipment. Out of the 32 laptops from the original purchase in 2013, several have been experiencing problems and are in need of replacement. With little discussion from the council, this reached a PASS 7-0 vote from the council.

4. Annually, the City adjusts its population count to assist with anticipating service needs from different departments. Bobby Lewis brought forward consideration and action to establish the city population at 35,307. PASS 7-0

5. City staff has identified several projects within the City Capitol Improvement Plan for the parks that no longer require services of MRB Group (Formerly BSP Engineering). Johnathan Haywood asked if we had already pre paid MRB for services until the city parks improvements are complete, and if so would we be getting any money back. Jeff Stoddard (Director of Parks and Rec) stated that we pay as we use them, so this action would be cutting costs for services not needed. With that, the council voted to PASS 7-0 this item.

6. Section 4.02 of the City Charter requires the City Manager to file a letter with the City Secretary designating qualified individuals to perform the duties of City Manager in their absence or disability. Ryan Haverlah has designated the following personnel as qualified individuals to perform in his absence:
1. Eddie Wilson (Chief of Police)
2. Scott Osbourn (Public Works Director)
3. Velia Kay (Financial Services Director)
The council voted to PASS 7-0 this designation.

Reports from City Staff
Ryan Haverlah update the Council that DEAAG is in the process of awarding funding for the S. HWY 9 Ramp going to Tank Destroyer Rd, and noted that once this goes through it would be contingent on about $3,000,000 in city funds which would be reimbursed by TxDOT. TxDOT will also donate the design cost.

He also touched on the Utility Department transition and said it is going smoothly and things are on a good track. They currently are not charging any late fees or performing any shut offs due to late payments, but he highly recommends you still stop by and make payments to your account. Once the bills start going out again, they will be covering the current billing period as well as the prior billing period that wasn't sent out so to avoid a huge bill - help yourself out and stop by to make payments.

Future Agenda Items
Fred Chavez requested that they discuss new comer briefings for citizens as well as touch on the Citizens Ombudsman Program that is in the works. This was agreed on and will be added to a future agenda.

Executive Session:
The council announced that they approved the evaluation of the City Manager. Vote 7-0.

Fathom is out of here on Friday the 13th. We have a plan!

Fathom is out of here on Friday the 13th. We have a plan!

The Council:
Mayor Diaz-Present
Joann Courtland-Present
Fred Chavez-Absent (Prior Commitment)
Dan Yancey-Present
Jay Manning-Present
Dianne Campbell-Present

Marc Payne-Present
Jack Smith-Present

Meeting Agenda

Council Video

Hello again Copperas Cove!!!

The City Manager brought the City Council in for a special meeting regarding the current state of our utilities department and the transfer from Fathom. Ryan Haverlah put on a presentation for the council with some input from Scott Osburn (Public Works Director).

Here is a timeline of the discussion:
November 19, 2019 City Council authorized additional positions in preparation for possible in-house utility administration services
November 21, 2019 City Council provided direction to transition to in-house utility administration services.
City Council directed staff to expand the current office to Suite A & B and City Hall and to begin the long-term action to renovate 305 S Main St to permanently move Utility Administration Department.
City Council directed staff to proceed with contracts with Core and Main for software and maintenance of the meter reading system.
City Council directed staff to not consider venders' Vertexone or Advanced Utility Systems as an utility customer information and billing system.
November 22, 2019 Public Forum held at the Civic Center
November 26, 2019 FATHOM notified the City of continued operations until December 9, 2019
December 2, 2019 Additional staff began training in Utility Administration Department
December 5, 2019 FATHOM notified the City of a final end of operations date, December 17, 2019

The slides that explain it all!

Fathom has been with Copperas Cove from 3 Apr 2017 - 17 Dec 2019. December 13th will be the last day of service from Fathom to the citizens of Copperas Cove, and December 17th will be the last day of data extraction from Fathom to the City of Copperas Cove. The City has been working on bringing in staff for in house utilities customer service with them hiring 2 more employees recently and in the middle of the interview process for a 3rd. They also have an extra position open for the billing dept. Suite "B" of their current location has been opened up to as part of the utilities office to allow for the extra employees and workload. It was originally thought to cost about 10k for this expansion, but one factor that wasn't thought of was the purchase of the extra computers needed. The final cost of the expansion wound up being $13,080. They also identified an alternate parking solution for employees in nearby parking lots to clear up the City Hall parking. Judge Price offered some of his parking nearby, as did PenFed Credit Union.

The old Utility Administration location (305 Main Street) still has many improvements needed before it's ready for move-in. An architect is needed because the city needs to have a wall added in the building for the safety of the CSRs and cash being handled. Ryan recalled having times in the past where so many people would be in there waiting that he would have people wrapping around to where the CSRs were seated while they were handling money so he would be having to move people back to the correct side of the counter. They would like to have a wall installed to increase security and safety. The building also still needs interior upgrades like abatement, ceiling work, flooring, etc to the estimated cost of $93,600, but that number is expected to increase. The exterior needs repairs in the estimated sum of $39,000, and they are wanting to install an automated payment kiosk in the drive-thru which will run $28,327 +S&H.

Once Fathom suspends service, there will be approximately 6 weeks of no bills. A physical letter will be mailed out to every house covering this and what to expect very shortly. Then, another letter will be mailed out preparing customers for the billing to start back up again. The next bill could essentially be a 2 month bill. Customers needing payment arrangements can request that with the city and arrangements will be made for everyone who needs it. Online payments will stay available via WaterSmart. The city is expecting a seamless transition from the Fathom customer portal to the WaterSmart customer portal. Auto Pay, however, will stop until the transition is complete. Joann Courtland asked if WaterSmart will offer ACH payments or if they will all be credit card payments, but Ryan wasn't sure of the answer so he said he will follow up to that and make sure it is included on the letters being mailed out.

Ryan went on to cover how the billing system works from the Neptune meter to the money being sent to the bank. From there he started covering the software that we will need to be self serving. The information collection software will run $27,844 for 36 months, and the meter reading software will cost $38,000 a year. He also covered a comparison of InScope vs the WaterSmart customer portals along with the staff recommendation. InCode will cost $21,600 per year of operation, and WaterSmart will cost $7,500 for the impliment, $28,297 for the first year of operation (the first two months will be free), and then settle out at $33,068 per year of operation after that. The city staff recommend WaterSmart due to transition consistency.

When it comes to the bill printing and mailing, Ryan went over DataProse vs USPS. DataProse will cost $46,350 annually, and USPS will cost $66,642 annually. Not only are DataProse cheaper, but they have a sizable list of things they offer over USPS that can help the city, so they are the recommendation from city staff.

With the Utility Dept report complete, the council moved on to the 3 agenda items needing vote: Consideration and action on authorizing the City Manager to execute a production agreement with (1) WaterSmart Software Inc, (2) Tyler Technologies/parent company of Incode, and (3) DataProse LLC. The City Attorney has reviewed the WaterSmart agreement and submitted changes. Those changes were approved by WaterSmart so the city is ready to move forward. Dianne Campbell is concerned about verbiage differences between two different sheets from WaterSmart. Scott Osburn agrees that we could get a more detailed list of services offered. Dianne agreed that we need a very specific list and noted just one of many discrepancies. Marc Payne asked if alert signups will be automatic, to which Ryan stated they would not be. There are certain ones the city could have as automatic, but not all customers want the same alerts so the city prefers to let people get on and set their own alerts. The city can implement some procedures with known leakers such as getting out and knocking on doors or leaving notes on doors when people don't answer. Before moving forward with the vote on WaterSmart, Joanne wanted an amendment requiring clarification of services offered. The amendment and the vote for WaterSmart both were a 6-0 PASS. The following agenda items for Tyler Technologies and DataProse LLC were also both a 6-0 PASS, and with that the city utility administration has vendors in place to move forward with bringing the water billing services back in town. We still have some work ahead, but the basics are in place.

City Council for April 2, 2019

Copperas Cove City Council meeting April 2, 2019

Hello again Copperas Cove! Thankyou for checking in on another City Council Update! This one was rather short (Just over an hour long), but as always - there was some good info that was put out. So, lets get started!

Council members:
Joann Courtland-Present
Fred Chavez-Present
Dan Yancey-Present
Jay Manning-Present
Kirby Lack-Present
Marc Payne-Present
Charlie Youngs-Present

Mayor Candidates:
Bradi Dewald Diaz-Present
Ron Nelson-Present
Joey Acfalle-Absent
Brandi Weiand-Absent

The Agenda:

Announcements:

Ryan Haverlah: 

-This Saturday, from 8:30-11am, there will be a "Texas Trash Off" taking place. Please meet "Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful" at the Library for step off. 

-Also on Saturday from 8am-Noon, there will be a Mayoral Candidate Meet & Greet at the VFW. There will be breakfast offered for $7. 

-That following Monday (April 8th), there will be a Mayoral Candidate Political Forum held at the CCISD Board Room (Across from the Fire Station, Next to Lil' Tex). This will start at 5:30 pm and go until 8pm. The first hour of it will be a meet and greet, so if work has you running late, you still have time to get in and catch the topics. 

-April 13th (Saturday), there will be an Easter Egg Roundup at City Park from 9-11am

Citizens Forum:

-Richard  Smith started things off with concerns about the neighborhood he lives in. He bought a house over near Courtney Lane, near SC Lee and JL Williams. He's noticed that there is a heavy amount of traffic in the area trying to merge out into and in from FM116 - and it will only be getting heavier as they add in more houses. He's requesting a traffic light be installed at the FM116/Courtney intersection. (Editors Note: This is a common problem brought up with the area, and Mr Richard is not the first person to bring this topic up. I wouldn't be surprised to see a traffic light in this area by the end of the year - Jeremy). He also brought up that the same intersection is starting to deteriorate and a dip is starting to form. He had brought this up to Councilman Marc Payne in the past and it was promptly filled in and road re-striped. He would like to see the city address this issue once again. To end, he brought up a concern that for his road, there's really only one way in and out, so if there should be an emergency that would block that road, he could find himself stuck in the area. There could be a second route out, but the second route has a locked gate blocking anyone from going through. (Editors Note: This may be a tough issue to have addressed. Technically, if the city were to add a second way out simply because a citizen brought up an issue with it, they COULD be opening themselves up to complaints from everyone living on a cul-de-sac street. Also, there usually isn't anything they can do without impeding on someones personal property - such as would be the case with the gated access that's locked up. I feel like Mr Richard brings up a valid point, but that may just be something homeowners have to pay attention to before we buy a house - Jeremy)

-Terri Deans brought up once again that the city is still experiencing problems with Fathom in regards to billing and customer service. She would really like to see the city address these problems. With that aside, she is an admin with Central Texas Disasters Response Team. They are currently planning a mass casualty drill on May 7th and are looking for as many victim actors as they can get. They need everyone - all ages. Also, if you have a group that could use some emergency preparedness training, they can send someone out to give that training. If you are interested in training, being part of the mass casualty drill, or joining the team - please give Terri a call at 254-238-1839. Please be aware that she does not answer phone calls from numbers she doesn't recognize (dang phone scammers ruined that for all of us - amiright), so just leave a brief voicemail and she will call you right back. 

-Alicia Menard: I believe she may have been with the Copperas Cove Chamber of Commerce. She was speaking about some other events going on in the area, but she was speaking so fast that I wasn't able to get most of it down. I did catch that there will be an Ambassador Garage Sale at the Cove Terrace Shopping Center on April 6th. (Editors Note: A little tip I recently learned for those of you who get nervous when you speak in front of groups like I do- talk slower than you think you should. Because things are going so fast and racing in your head, if you slow down slower than you think you should be, you generally wind up talking at a very good pace. I've tried it and it seems like it works. If nothing else, it calms me down - Jeremy)

-Jonathan Haywood closed things out by bringing up the driveway between the post office and the car wash. All of us locals know the one - it has MAJOR pot holes in it, and a lot of us drive in the grass to avoid it all together if we have to go that way. The problem with it is that is not a city owned road, and the business owner who owns that parking lot/driveway/road refuses to fix it. John realizes the city can't do anything themselves since they don't own it, but he asks the council if they could reach out to the business owner and help influence them to fix that road.

Consent Agenda:

All four items passed unanimously. They were for past minutes from previous meetings.

Action Items:

H1: The Chamber of Commerce came to the council with a request for HOT funds that was about nine months after the deadline for some of the expenses for the Rabbit Fest. The date of submission was March 21, 2019. Alicia Menard, the new president of  the CoC, is requesting $13,375 in HOT funds. Hotel Occupancy Tax funds are the extra taxes you pay to stay in a hotel or motel and can be only used to promote tourism in a city where it is collected. The deadline for this fiscal year was last spring. The Interim City Manager informed the CoC that only $3880 remain in the fund for promotion of Arts so that the total amount would be $11,255. Mr Yancey asked the Chamber president why the request was not submitted last year and she told him that there was no interest in requesting HOT funds with the prior Chamber President. However, she is new in her position and rather than linger on the past, she is trying to look to the future and make things better for everyone - including she wants to rebuild the relationship between the Chamber of Commerce and the City Council. All of the CoC members have been working hard at trying to get things in a better position, and she fully expects to be able to turn that relationship around between them and the city. She came into this realizing that the request was late and that it could very well be shot down because of that. But she wanted to at least try to get it late rather than never, and she fully plans on going for all the HOT funds she can moving in the future to help promote the arts. Councilman Youngs stated the the previous City Manager and Council destroyed the relationship between the city and both the EDC and CoC so he's all for this to help rebuild that relationship. Kirby Lack stated that he's trying to get away from bending rules for everyone, and the CoC has missed their deadline. Alicia stated she fully understands his point, and reiterated that she is trying to slide this one in with the intention of doing things right moving forward. To get the full $13,375, they would have to do some adjusting of the budget after the fact, so Jay Manning requested an amendment lowering the amount to $11,255. The amendment and the action item that passed lowered the request to $11,255 . 

Vote was 5-2. (Lack voted no based on principle/Youngs voted no because he wanted the full amount) PASS

Our question is that on the line "Registration of Convention Delegates" for $1260. 

Who are the delegates for the "Rabbit Fest"?

Side note: Mayoral Candidate Bradi Dewald Diaz is listed on the board of trustees for the Chamber of Commerce. 

H2: After many long, agonizing discussions regarding fee reductions at the Civic Center, the council voted to approve reducing the daily fee from $500 to $250 for everyone - again, with no discounts for any special groups. PASS

H3: For this item they were just making a few name changes with some positions and jobs. One of the bigger changes that citizens will see is the Planning Dept will now be called the Developmental Services Dept. PASS

H4: This was just Councilmembers Joann Courtland and Fred Chavez swapping some external board positions with each other. Nothing that 99% of us citizens will notice. Just like with H3, it was more of a formality. PASS

CITY REPORTS:

Ryan Haverlah gave report to staff on utility billing complaints and meter replacements. 

-With the recent update to the Fathom online portal, customers can set a payment date that is after the due date. A problem that has been coming up is some customers have been setting their online payment date for after their due date, and in some cases it has fallen on their water shutoff date. So, they think they are ok because they have an auto-draft, but don't realize that if the money isn't to Fathom by their shutoff date, that water is getting shut off. Additionally, all calls to Fathom or the city after 3 pm to turn water back on aren't processed until the next business day. This is because the final 2 hours is to allow employees to close out work orders generated during the day. Fred Chavez asked if the city can have Fathom get with whoever does their code and set calendar parameters so you can't select an auto-pay date that falls after your due date. Ryan explained that there are some complications with that such as if someone sets up auto pay today (April 2nd) to have it take effect May 1st, but then they don't pay their bill for the month of April manually and it's due on the 12th. Well, now it's going to be received very late and will most likely lead to water being shut off. Dan Yancey asked if we can have Fathom allow customers to set their own due date since some customers are on a monthly income. Ryan said he will look into both options. 

- There have been problems with multiple bills being sent out within days of each other. A lot of these have been resolved by now and most of those were due to either local meter reading issues that happened before all the meters were changed, or connectivity issues with the meters and data collectors that are placed around the city. There's been other cases that have popped up - one recent one being a customer who was VERY public about the fact that they were double billed and couldn't pay for other essentials because they had such a high amount to pay for their water bill. This was found to be that they were actually behind on payments. Several failed attempts have already been made to get in contact with this customer, but the city will keep trying to reach out and talk to the customer about this issue. 

-There have been concerns regarding high water usage alerts. Typically with these alerts, a fast leak (burst pipe, for example) will send you a notice after one day of continual leak, and a slow leak (leaky faucet) will send you a notice after two days of continual leak. You can adjust these parameters in your Fathom online account settings. If a customer can provide proof that the leak was professionally repaired, they can request a sewer use credit for the period of time that they had the leak. This will be based on normal usage. These are limited to 1 credit every 12 months. 

-One customer recently stated they had a bill showing 50,000 gallons of use. This was found to not be true both with an account search and in talking with the customer. 

-In regards to double billing complaints, there is a base rate that everybody with a water meter pays. This is just to have access to that water connection and for maintenance of the city water system. After that, you are charged $4.75 per 1,000 gallons used, and that is calculated down to 1/1000 of a gallon. The sewer rate is $6 per 1,000 gallons used. Seniors get a 20% discount on all charges up to 5,000 gallons used as approved by the city council recently. 

-Recently, a customer got two bills that were received two days apart. It was legitimate, and they were even for the same billing cycle. What happened was the first bill sent out was found to be incorrect, revised, and sent out again with an updated balance. But, nobody every reached out to the customer to let them know what was going on which put them into a panic - rightfully so. Everything was eventually straightened out, and I'm assuming this is an issue that has been addressed internally. 

- The city began installing meters in October 2016. They did a full swap of meter and sensors. There were originally about 1,500 unreplaced meters that they could not replace safely without interrupting service to surrounding areas. A lot of times, this was due to things such as someone pouring concrete all around the meter, preventing the city from replacing anything without breaking up the concrete. The city employees have been making significant progress in replacing those problem meters, but they do still have some that have not been replaced yet. There have been recent comments about only the sensor being replaced and not the meter, or vice versa (basically a retrofit). This simply is not true. 

Future Agenda Items:

Marc and Fred both would like to look at having their absences approved

Charlie Youngs would like to look at procedures for selecting EDC staff. He would like to allow the EDC staff to review applications and submit comments before sending to council. He explicitly stated the EDC staff would not be allowed to remove any applications - only provide their own comments on applicants. 

Thanks for sticking with us and staying in tune with your town. If you have any questions about something referenced or have something to add - please let us know in the comments! As always, please subscribe and share, share, share. Lets get this around so people can be in tune with what's going on in their city and have an opportunity to Speak Up!!! 

Fathom Audit

Copperas Cove Utilities Billing Audit - By Weaver and Tidwell 
5 Feb 2019


The Copperas Cove City Council received its requested Utilities Billing Audit, conducted by Weaver and Tidwell LLP. The audit covered a period from 1 April 2017 - 1 Sept 2018. Weaver and Tidwell identified approximately 14,000 individual accounts and approximately 242,000 meter reads during this period.

The procedures performed are as follows:

-Selected 150 individual accounts, allocated across seniors, residential, and commercial groups for testing.

-Compared the amount billed to the preceding and subsequent months and identified any accounts that have a variance greater than 5%.

-Recalculated the amount billed according to the fee schedule.

-Obtained the total volume amount billed and identified any variance greater than 10%.


To match the 1% requested by the City Council, they selected 141 accounts across the city to audit.
Of those 141 accounts:
-123 were residential accounts
-13 were residential-senior accounts
-5 were business accounts


None of the accounts audited showed any mis-calculations of consumption. Of the 141 accounts, 64 had variances of more than 10% from one month to another - which isn't out of the ordinary. 134 of the accounts were recalculated within .01. Of the remaining 7 that weren't, 6 were due to either a shorter/longer billing period depending on what cycle they were on or they were due to Council approved rate changes. 1 account was shown to be an error with their senior citizen discount not being fully applied. That wound up being a recurring error, and one that the auditor will be working with the city to correct for that customer. May - June showed the biggest billing variance across all the accounts due to the billing dates for that period falling on 1 June and 29 June.

In addition to the audit, Weaver and Tidwell presented some extra information that they thought could be useful to the city.

Disconnect Notices:
-None issued between April - June 2017. They believe this may have inadvertently caused problems by letting people get used to not paying their bill and not have anything to worry about. This may have started a domino effect for some customers who now struggle to get their bill paid on time.

-Issued 1-2 days past the bill due date. These notify that the disconnect will be 10 days after the notice is mailed out. (Editors note: Keep in mind - that 10 days includes any weekends if it's mailed out on a Thursday/Friday as well as holidays if the mail is down. It IS possible for you to get a disconnect notice in the mail on a Monday afternoon and have it tell you you're due for disconnect the following Tuesday.)

-No disconnects during Thanksgiving week, Christmas week, or New Years day.

High Consumption Notices:
-Received via email and phone call
-Approximately 40% of our accounts are active online. No online accounts will not receive an email disconnect notice. This presents a problem because phone calls are automated, and a lot of people instinctively do not answer automatic phone calls that come across as spam on caller ID, or they hang up as soon as they hear the automated voice.

Audit discussion by City Manager and City Council members:
-Ryan Haverlah started the conversation off by bringing up that the city did not retain a proper amount of staff to know what would be needed to work with Fathom - which was cause of a lot of the problems with accounts. This put the city in a reactive mode. Once we get our utility staffing back up, that will help us regain footing in a proactive role. However, during the issues the city has had, Fathom has been very responsive in helping city staff.
-Joann Courtland stated that this "is not enough data". Citizens are still coming forth with issues and we need to do everything we can to help them. With this audit, "we hit the bread, but we want to get to the meat" of the problem.
-Charlie Youngs would like to see the city keep the auditor on hand until the city staff gets better and can start doing in house audits. To that, the auditor replied that they could certainly do more work if needed.
-Marc Payne asked if Fathom can do any tracking of the types of problems coming in - even if it's just a paper next to each phone with general types of problems in columns, and the operator quickly puts a check in a column as it is called in.
-Dan Yancey stated the call centers don't have the time to track problem types so we need to find a different way. Jay Manning stepped in and said that 1% isn't a bad number, and that there aren't any real problems being highlighted in the audit. With the old system, a lot of times the meter reads were averaged out. Those problems that were ignored because the reading was being averaged out are now having a spotlight put on them, grabbing peoples attention via their wallets. More audits won't do any good - we should focus on our known problems for now. It is in our and Fathoms best interest to work together. For Fathom, this is even a PR issue as it won't look good for them if a city backs out due to poor service. He believes we can work together and fix all the issues going on.
-Ryan Haverlah will start categorizing and focusing on complaints, however a lot of the initial problems have been worked out.
-Fred Chavez agrees with Jay Manning's comments. He wants to compare our numbers to Fathoms as well as look at what they consider appropriate standards of customer service vs our standards.

The audit was not open for public comment, however you may comment on it at the citizens forum. With that, the discussion ended and moved on to the next agenda item.