Water Fight: Jail Claims City of Bartlett Overcharging For Services
by Deborah McKeon | Police Reporter
Published: April 28, 2011
Temple Daily Telegram, Temple Texas
by Deborah McKeon | Police Reporter
Published: April 28, 2011
Temple Daily Telegram, Temple Texas
Corrections Corp. of America filed a federal lawsuit claiming the city of Bartlett has been overcharging Bartlett State Jail for water since the summer of 2010 and, as a result of notification, that the city would disconnect services.
CCA and the City of Bartlett will appear in US District Court in Waco at 9 am today to determine if a preliminary injunction should be issued to prevent the city from shutting off water and sewer services to the jail. The court ordered appearance and temporary restraining order were signed April 19th by US District Judge Walter Smith.
CCA maintains in the complaint the city's water an sewer utility bills to the jail were excessive.
Bartlett councilwoman Gina Grove said no comment would be made until after the hearing today.
According to the complaint, the city stated in an April 14 letter that CCA owed $213,237(two hundred and thirteen thousand) for water and sewer services including the April bill of $179,500 and the $33,737 the city maintains was discounted without council approval, The payment as demanded by noon Monday..
"Failure to tender payment in full will result in water service being terminated for non-payment," said the letter, which was reportedly hand delivered to Jean Shuttleworth, assistant general council for contract management for CCA.
The letter read:"I regret that our first contact be of this nature, as you are aware, the city conducted tests on the meters servicing your facility. The tests indicate that your facility is actually receiving more water, than being billed.".
According to the complaint, meter testing March 4th confirmed the state jail consumed less water than Bartlett figures and water flow was not being measured accurately.
CCA contends that terms of an ordinance addressing utility billing disputes were not received until CCA submitted and Open Records Request Dec 14, 2010. CCA said a faxed copy was received Dec. 15.
The city faxed an invoice to CCA on Dec 28 dated Dec 17, 2010 for utility service from Nov 12th to Dec 13th, the complaint said.
On Jan 10th CCA said it submitted a dispute/protest, saying water consumption was overstated by 44 percent.The city did not respond to the protest within 5 business days, as required by city ordinance, the complaint claims.
Subsequent bills for utility services were faxed to CCA, to which they replied with protests, which went unanswered , it said.
CCA continued to receive faxed invoices, to which they filed complaints, the last of which was filed April 11th protesting the March bill.
CCA claims it attempted to pay the undisputed amounts of several bills, and the city took the checks payable to the city as the undisputed portion of the Dec bill, but has not cashed or otherwise used the check. In addition the CCA states the city would not take checks submitted along with their protests.
CCA gave the city a check on April 11th for dumpster charges on the December, January, February and March bill, however the dumpster charges were reportedly included in the checks sent along with the protests..
The complaint says because the city did not respond to CCA's protests, the balances due as determined by CCA should have been final, under the city ordinance, and they should not owe the entire $179,500.82, the city demanded.
CCA seeks a judgement that the city may not shut off or terminate utility services, and if the city does shut it off, even after CCA has complied with the city's dispute procedures, they would be violating CCA's due process.
CCA asked the court to award it reasonable attorney fees and expert witnesses and requested a jury trial.
In a supplement CCA contends that ordinance provides inadequate notice to request a hearing, the hearing is not by a neutral official, and there is no judicial review of the official's final decision.
Sutton G. Page hired by CCA, said he city meter doesn't accuarately measure jail water consumption. During his evaluation on Sept 09, 2010, he found that the pipe feeding into the city's meter from the tank is larger in diameter than the inlet to the City's meter. He contends that a meter's accuracy can be affected by immediate variations in pipe diameter or the presence of fittings.
William Johansen, a licensed professional engineer, and director of engineering at Colorado Engineering Experiment Station Inc., said the jail meters don't function properly, and can't reliably account for the amount of water flowing through.
Johansen observed the March 4 testing and recorded that the low flow meter was inoperable, and the flow measurement error was 100 percent. That of a properly reading meter should be 3 percent or less.
Johansen said the high flow meter had a flow measurement error of 14.4 percent to 95 percent, which,was 5 to more than 30 times the recommended standards.
Johansen said the type of meter has a rate of flow of 2,000 gallons per minute when operating at full capacity. He said the testing equipment that Bartlett used had a flow rate of only 150 gallons per minute in the high flow meter, at the highest measurement. .
email dmckeon@tdtnews.com
