Cutting Water Billing Chaos

By JOHN M. COSTABILE, City Clerk, Chicago Heights, Illinois

The strategy described in the following article can help local governments move billing responsibilities from mainframes to PCs and LANs and facilitate the sharing of data between these computer systems.

Local officials responsible for water-billing activities often feel like Keystone Cops trying to solve a case.

Automating the meter-reading process may be a valuable "clue" in the caper. Possible solutions that make meter reading more efficient include.

• Coding account numbers on water bills and posting receipts by cash register.

• Automating meter reading.

• Combining the two solutions in a system that records readings automatically by telephone and automates the posting of payments in a one-step process.

Chicago Heights, Illinois (population 32,000), has 9,500 water accounts, billed bimonthly. The city's search for an ideal billing system began at Chicago's water billing department and continued at the billing department in Bensenville, Illinois, which has 4,500 water accounts on a monthly billing system. Both billing departments use barcoding and check validation.

Chicago Heights has decided to phase in a PC-based cash register system with the ability to share payment information and readings with the mainframe (a Unisys A4). A barcoding or an OCR system will be used to facilitate the entry of customer-based readings. PC-based cash registers reduce posting, overtime, and the need for additional support.

The city's justification for the register system is the reduction of water billing staff from five to four people and the estimated reduction of water billing overtime from $10,000 a year to $4,000 per year. The reduced staff and the $6,000 overtime savings average an estimated payroll savings of $31,516 per year (see chart). Each reading and payment is handled only once (instead of twice), a computer list of all payments is produced, and all payment data with barcodes and customer readings on water bills is entered directly into the automated system.

	Basic System ($10,000 register, $24,604 payroll with 4% annual raise)	New System (Two 386 cash registers with scanners connected to mainframe)
Year l	$34,604	$25,000
Year 2	25,588	350 (annual license fee)
Year 3	26,611	350
Year 4	27,676	350
Year 5	28,783	350
Year 6	29,934	350
Year 7	31,131	350
Year 8	32,377	350
Year 9	33,672	350
Year 10	35,019	350
Year 11	36,419	350
Year 12	37,876	350
Year 13	39,391	350
Year 14	40,967	350
Year 15	42,606	350
	$502,654	$29,900
	Cost of basic system over 15 years	$502,654
	Cost of new system over 15 years	29,900
	Difference	$472,754
	Average annual savings	$31,516

A comparison of projected water billing costs over 15 years.

Here is another "clue" when choosing a new system:

Do some comparison shopping. Get prices from third-party vendors as well as second-party vendors, but make sure that a proposed system will integrate with the local government's present software. Chicago Heights found that the best pricing and quality in PC-based software was offered by Quadrant Systems (800/933-3214). Advantage Systems (313/588-3480),

Page 22 / Illinois Municipal Review / January 1993

which presently operates only in Michigan, offered the best deal in software for linking an independent cash-receipting system with a mainframe as a third-party vendor but Advantage software operates on an AS/400. The only second-party vendor judged to have a good, inexpensive, and complete cash register system was HTE (800/727-8088), which operates on a AS/400 mid-range computer and is dedicated to the IBM OS/400 operating system. These companies provide a good starting place for other municipal users looking for competitive proposals.

In the case of the PC-based cash-receipting system chosen for Chicago Heights, communication with the mainframe is accomplished with an emulation board and networking software that connects registers to each other and downloads cash-receipting to the mainframe. Both 386 computers and barcoding or OCR print bands are recommended for speed in processing receipts.

In comparing OCR and barcode scanners, this author prefers barcode scanners because they are more reliable and less expensive, excluding printer costs. (Also, the print band for the OCR tends to smear after extended use with a line printer; this is not a problem with a dot matrix printer.) However, there is one last piece to put in place to make barcoding possible: the city must find a Unisys-compatible printer that has a graphics program that will print barcodes.

Telephone-read accounts appear to be another valuable solution for streamlining water billing. One of the jurisdictions that we visited in the search for an efficient water billing system has a telephone-read system for water meters. Only one clerk is necessary to operate a personal computer that reads meters by telephone and is connected to a computer running utility billing software. Having one person operate the billing system is cost-effective and eliminates confusion.

The efficiency of the telephone-read system justifies the initial expense of an additional $20 per meter for an internal modem. By improving the accuracy of meter readings, residential meter replacement can generate sufficient revenue (about 10 percent) to update a system without any rate increase. The case is solved! Water-billing activities no longer have to resemble the Keystone Cops comedies. •

January 1993 / Illinois Municipal Review / Page 23