BCC Utilities Rates - Dated May 30, 2025
Summary
The Pasco County Clerk & Comptroller's Department of Inspector General, partnering with external firm Forvis Mazars, performed agreed-upon procedures (AUPs) to determine whether Pasco County Utilities (BCC Utilities Department) correctly implemented BCC-approved utility rates for residential and commercial accounts into the billing system for fiscal years beginning October 1, 2023 and October 1, 2024. Testing covered 142,843 customer accounts in the November 2023 billing cycle as well as rate chart comparisons for FY2024 and FY2025.
The engagement identified 2 recommendations. All approved rates in use were correctly implemented; however, 14 inactive billing codes remained active in the billing system across both fiscal years, posing a risk of accidental use. Additionally, 33 of 142,843 accounts (0.02%) were billed incorrectly in November 2023 due to meter endpoint change-outs, and 7 separate accounts had prior-period correction credits totaling $9,265.54 for overbillings caused by incorrect service bill codes.
Management responded constructively to both recommendations: the 14 inactive billing codes have since been disabled, and staff have implemented pre-cycle auditing procedures using the Forvis Mazars methodology, with open vendor tickets to address the meter endpoint billing software defect.
2 findings
- Recommendation 1lowdata access
Fourteen Inactive Billing Codes Remain Active in Billing System
During review of the FY2024 and FY2025 utility rate charts, 14 billing codes that were no longer in use were found to still be active in the utility billing system. Of 318 billing codes in FY2024, 304 agreed to BCC-approved rates and 14 were inactive but enabled; the same 14 codes persisted in the FY2025 chart of 329 codes. Active inactive codes pose a risk of accidental use that could result in inaccurate customer billings.
Recommendation: Management should review all billing codes and disable codes that are no longer in use to prevent accidental use which could result in inaccurate billings.Management response: The 14 bill codes have since been disabled; currently all active bill codes are in use. - Recommendation 2lowother$9,265
Billing Calculation Errors Linked to Meter Endpoint Change-Outs
During testing of all November 2023 billing cycles across 142,843 accounts, 33 accounts (0.02%) were found to have incorrectly calculated utility bills attributable to meter/endpoint change-outs. This resulted in 28 accounts being underbilled by a total of $141.60 and 5 accounts overbilled by $4.32. Separately, 7 accounts had corrections and rebills from prior months due to incorrect service bill codes (not incorrect rate implementation), resulting in overcharges totaling $9,265.54 that were credited back to customers in the November 2023 cycle. Existing monitoring procedures were insufficient to proactively detect these billing irregularities before bills were issued.
Recommendation: Management should consult with the utility billing software vendor (AUS) to develop a fix for meter endpoint change-out billing errors, and add controls—such as pre-cycle auditing of each billing batch—to ensure these errors do not continue to occur in the future.Management response: Management noted the 33 incorrect accounts represent 0.02%, within industry standards. Open tickets have been submitted to AUS (the software vendor). As an interim measure, daily reports are now pulled and each billing cycle is audited prior to update using the Forvis Mazars spreadsheet methodology, filtering SQL results by batch number for errors.