Wis. customers paid $6.3 million in back bills

APPLETON, Wis. — The 94 electric utilities operating in Wisconsin imposed $6.3 million in back charges on nearly 7,700 customers last year due to faulty meters, data entry mistakes and other issues, according to a newspaper analysis.

State law allows utilities to back-bill for up to two years of errors, even those caused by the utilities. Utility officials contend that the law requires them to make the corrections. The officials told The Post-Crescent that back-billing situations are unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable, and the state’s system for making adjustments works.

Brian Carriere of Star Prairie in northwestern Wisconsin might disagree. “We had kind of a nightmare,” said Carriere, who was hit with a nearly $1,000 back charge in 2009 from Northern States Power Co.

The utility told Carriere it had underestimated his bills during an eight-month span when the utility was unable to access his home’s meter.

Scott Meske, associate director for Municipal Electric Utilities of Wisconsin, an association representing 82 municipal-owned utilities, said the system isn’t perfect, but neither are electric meters.

While utilities back-billed $6.3 million last year, they also refunded $5.2 million in overcharges to about 2,800 customers.

State Sen. Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, who introduced legislation this year to end back-billing, said the sheer number of billing mistakes uncovered by the newspaper was troubling.

“In this era of technology, they ought to be able to come up with a process to identify how much they are selling to the customer,” he said of the utilities. “And they ought to be able to do that without 11,000 mistakes.”