Some Georgetown homeowners describe ‘outrageous’ water bills; city blames supply chain issues

Frank Pettey’s water bill is on auto pay. Recently he said he had to do a double take when his wife told him they had been billed $1,272.24 for utilities. “My ears went up very quickly,” Pettey said. “And I said ‘let me look into that.'” The former accountant discovered that they were billed for 253,000 gallons of water during their July statement, which also included their electric use. “Knowing that that was impossible, I started calling the Georgetown utilities. The person who answered the phone first told me well, you must have a leak. And I said no, if I had a leak that big my house would be floating. I said, something else is wrong,” Pettey explained.

Pettey, who lives in Sun City, a Georgetown subdivision, said he normally uses 12,000 to 14,000 gallons a month. “That would be like swimming pools of water flowing down the street,” Pettey said.” And my house would have been floating with it.”' Georgetown Utility Systems explained that there was a problem with the automated meter reader, and Pettey was among 1,600 customers whose transmitter failed. The transmitter is on the left. The meter is on the right. (Courtesy: City of Georgetown Utilities) “The meter is working fine,” said Leticia Zavala Jones, the customer care director with the city of Georgetown. “We’re just not getting the read electronically. And because we don’t have meter readers on staff, per se, because we’re all automated, and we get our reads electronically, we can’t get out through 470 square miles in a really fast turnaround time.”