City of Cape responding to utility bill errors

An unfortunate part of life is watching money go down the drain.

For some Cape Girardeau city utility customers, the activity became a little more intense when the new billing system incorrectly transferred sewer-usage data.

The computer software glitch undoubtedly had some people doing double takes earlier this month, when up to 1,400 customers citywide could have received inflated utility bills for water, sewer and trash services.

City spokeswoman Nicolette Brennan sent an email to the Southeast Missourian, acknowledging her staff discovered the error in the first of four billing groups for July.

In a later news release, Brennan wrote the city was working with the software vendor to resolve the problem and reviewing accounts to correct errors before the bills arrived in customer mailboxes and before withdrawals were made on automatic accounts.

"Any charges will be refunded," Brennan said. "We are very sorry for any inconvenience to our customers."

The snafu managed to make front-page news, and part of that was an attempt to alert the public of the mistake.

To its credit, the city responded to the mistake swiftly and sincerely, acting both proactively and apologetically.

The city changed its utility billing system in May with the goal of it becoming less time-consuming for staff and more efficient. Suffice to say, in terminology fit for July, the launch was a dud. To error is human, and unfortunately computers sometimes inherit our flaws.

This appears to be nothing more than a glitch, the kind that often come with progress and attempts to improve. While you hope to avoid start-up problems, we say, no harm, no foul in this situation. And credit the city for it's prompt transparency.

However, if a customer feels differently, believing they were billed incorrectly, call or email the city's customer service office at (573) 339-6322 or customerservice@cityofcape.org.