Some Washington Electric Utilities customers are victims of “glitches” related to Washington Electric Utilities switching from old billing software to new billing software.

City Manager Bobby Roberson and Matt Rauschenbach, the city’s chief financial officer and who is familiar with the software, acknowledge the switch resulted in about 10 customers having their power and water turned off despite paying their bills. Roberson apologized for the power interruptions. Rauschenbach said the city is working hard to address the glitches as fast as possible.

Roberson said once the glitches are fixed, he believes WEU customers will appreciate the efficiency and features of the new billing system, which allows online payments.

Some customers have complained about problems with newly installed automated features related to online payments. Other customers have complained of their power being cut off although they made their payments. David Clark, who lives on Main Street, is one of those customers.

“I had made a payment on my bill, but I was sitting here working and the power went out. I work out of my house. It didn’t even dawn on me that they had disconnected me because I had made my payment,” Clark said. “My history here with power going out is they’re amazing, compared to other places I’ve lived, they’re amazing at getting power back on really quickly. It’s probably because we’re on the same trunk as emergency services — the sheriff’s department, you know. It always came back on pretty quick.”

Clark said his power was off for about five hours, from about 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., the day a city employee disconnected the power. Clark said he decided to go to a coffee shop while the power was off, thinking it was off because of a usual power outage. “As I was down there, one of my neighbors was outside with a Washington utilities truck going through the same thing, although she had seen the truck out there and stopped him before he turned off her electricity,” Clark said. “So then that got me thinking. I did what I needed to do at the coffee shop quickly and came back to report the outage. When I reported the outage, of course, they said, ‘No, you got disconnected for nonpayment.’”

Clark said when he received his latest utilities bill last week, “there were some problems with the bill.” That’s when he decided he needed to “deal with this,” Clark said. “I tried calling, but you could not get a live person, and all voice mailboxes were filled up,” he said. “I guess that’s because there’s so much of this problem going on.”

After he provided the city with proof he had paid his bill with a credit card, a city employee told him there were problems with the billing system, Clark said. That employee also said his power would be restored that day. It took several hours for that to happen, Clark noted.

Clark said he told city employees he works from his house and the longer the power was out, the more money he was losing in billable hours. Clark said if he and his wife had been away from home for several hours or out of town for several days, the loss of power and water for more than just a couple of hours could have caused problems at their home, such as items in the refrigerator going bad.

“We’re the first ones to admit we had outdated software. It was to our advantage to step up and get current with a great software program. Matt’s done the research. His team has done a great job. We’re in the process of transitioning from A to B,” Roberson said. “Whenever you do that, you’ve got to keep your old system in. Then you’ve got to transfer over. There are some glitches in it. Anybody that’s ever gone through this understands that. … I’m the first one to tell you, sometimes mistakes are made with the transfers. That’s exactly where we are.”

Most, if not all, of the complaints were received the same day, Tuesday, Rauschenbach said.

“It’s a transition of a huge system. The basic system was implemented. Now the automated features are being implemented. … The bulk of the complaints have been related to those automated features of payment, whether it be through the Internet or telephone,” Rauschenbach said. “Those aspects are being ramped up and are coming online. The telephone payments came online a week ago. The web payments began earlier this week. So, that is addressing some of those complaints.”

Rauschenbach said if a customer’s utilities were cut off by mistake, they were restored as soon as possible.

Roberson said he is not aware of any problems such as food in refrigerators spoiling or similar problems because of utilities being mistakenly cut off after bills were paid.

Clark voiced concern with how many other WEU customers could be affected by the problems with the billing system and resulting cutoffs of power despite bills being paid. “How many elderly people do we have here, and what kind of problems is that causing for them? Who made the decision to cut people off, and then deal with the problems later?” Clark said. “ I can’t comprehend the kind of decision.”