The Birmingham Water Works Board has hired its former general manager as a consultant to fix persistent customer billing issues.
On Tuesday, the Birmingham Water Works board approved a plan to bring in Macaroy Underwood of Underwood Financial Consultants, LLC, to conduct a detailed review and analysis of customer billing and collections from Jan. 1, 2022 through July 31, 2022.
Former superintendent of meter reading Michael Parker will also be consulting under contract with Underwood Financial services.
Underwood served as general manager of the utility from 2005 to 2018 and Parker served from 2011 to 2017.
Board Chairman Christopher Rice said an official date for Underwood to begin working has not been decided, but that it will be soon.
Rice said this was a short-term fix and highlighted the importance of getting a second set of eyes on the billing issues Water Works’ customers have been dealing with for nearly a year.
Some 13,000 of the Birmingham Water Works’ 200,000 customers across the five-county metro region are not being billed based on meter readings of actual usage. Instead, as the Lede has previously reported, thousands of customers have gone months without bills, some since October, and many in June got multiple bills with estimated charges system officials say are based on previous months’ billings.
These estimated bills, which Water Works staff said were necessitated by a lack of meter readers - due to COVID and a difficult hiring market - had totals that in some cases far exceeded typical previous bills.
In addition to the lack of bills and estimated billings, the Lede also previously reported that several customers were being overcharged on the utility’s autopay system.
The recommendation for Underwood’s services was pushed forward to the Water Works board by their finance committee last week, although several board members questioned whether this was a legal or ethical choice given Underwood’s history as the former general manager.
Water Works Lawyer Mike Parnell said there were no legal or ethical issues with former employees looking at current Water Works documents due to a “revolving door” policy, which usually regulates how government workers can transition to private practices.
Parnell said under this policy, previous Water Works employees were allowed to work with the company after two or more years of being gone.
This follows AL Code § 36-25-13 (2019), an ethics code for public officials and employees, which states no public official shall serve for a fee as a lobbyist or otherwise represent clients, including his or her employer before the board, agency, commission, department, or legislative body, of which he or she is a former member for a period of two years after he or she leaves such membership.
Montgomery attorney Dennis Bailey, an expert in media law and counsel to the Alabama Press Association, said that he was not aware of any state laws prohibiting previous employees from working with government entities or viewing current client records after this time period, and that this would be something decided by local laws or bylaws within a company itself.
Birmingham Water Works does not have its own code surrounding the issue but follows the state ethics code.
In this week’s board meeting Second Vice Chairwoman Tereshia Huffman expressed doubts that Underwood Financial would provide a solution to the current billing issues. She confirmed with Water Works manager Michael Johnson that when Underwood was general manager, he had a record of over 20,000 customers receiving increased bills during his term.
“Why are we bringing back a general manager to do an audit when he himself had increased bills?” Huffman said. “Did anyone audit him when he had them?”
Rice answered that he believed Underwood was the best person for the job because he resolved previous billing issues as general manager and established the billing system Water Works currently uses.
Jefferson County District 2 Commissioner Sheila Tyson, who was not at the meeting, said she does not believe that the board’s current solution will resolve her constituents’ billing issues.
“There’s a reason he (Underwood) doesn’t work there anymore,” Tyson said. “If he resolved his billing issues why are we still seeing them?”
Tyson added that she has received calls this week from people in her district who are not receiving bills or recently received bills for large, unexpected amounts.
“You don’t have room to make mistakes when it will affect the entire quality of life for a person,” said Tyson. “I could easily be wrong but from the outside looking in, I don’t see it (fixing the issue).”
Underwood was present at the board meeting but did not comment on the propriety of consulting on the billing issues. Before and after the meeting efforts to contact Underwood were unsuccessful.
This story was updated at 8:46 p.m. Aug. 10 to clarify Michael Parker is also consulting on the issue.
This story was updated at 11:05 a.m. Aug. 11 to clarify Underwood was present at the board meeting.
Ad Choices