FRANKLIN
A preliminary report by Bellwether Management Solutions has concluded that the City of Franklin’s utility meter reading equipment is functioning correctly. The city contracted with Bellwether in April to perform a third-party, independent audit of the city’s utility meters after numerous residents reported receiving utility bills in excess of $800, $900 and in some cases even $1,000 during February.

Per the terms of Bellwether’s contract, in May, the company followed an FP&L meter reading truck to 4,663 sites and took its own electronic meter readings, all of which matched up with the city’s numbers.

During phase two of the audit, which was completed on Aug. 6, Bellwether sent its personnel to obtain visual, non-electronic readings of 823 sites — amounting to 15 percent of Franklin Power and Light’s total customer base — around 60 of which were commercial. Most of these were within 100 kilowatt hours of the city’s readings, which would translate to a difference of $10.85 or less on a residential electric bill.

FP&L Director Mark Bly said that Bellwether encountered a total of 36 sites where its personnel were unable to obtain a visual reading or obtained a reading of zero. He explained that five of these were disconnected, one property had dogs in the yard preventing the meter reader from approaching, one was the wrong type of meter (commercial mounted on a residential home,) one was the wrong meter for the listed address, and 28 meters had unreadable displays.

“This is a very common occurrence,” Bly said. “The sun will fade the clear plastic so you can’t see through it.”

Of the houses and businesses showing a difference of greater than 100 kilowatt hours during the visual reading, most were negative, meaning that the city’s reading was lower than Bellwether’s.

However, five addresses indicated lower electric usage during Bellwether’s visual inspection than what had been reported during the city’s electronic reading.

These addresses were 201 Main St., which showed a difference of 117 kilowatt hours; 33475 Carver Road, which showed a difference of 761 kilowatt hours; 319 Forest Pine Road, which showed a difference of 9,867 kilowatt hours, 314 Clay St., which showed a difference of 935 kilowatt hours; and 1416 Clay St., which showed a difference of 265 kilowatt hours.

Bly explained that in some of these cases, the lower visual readings by Bellwether could result if these addresses had older electro-mechanical readers. The registers on electro-mechanical meters, which show a series of dials rather than a digital display, can sometimes slow down after years of continuous running. However, the transmitter that sends usage data to Franklin Power and Light would be unaffected.

Another explanation Bly suggested was that Bellwether’s meter reader may have written down the readings wrong. He said that FP&L would examine the meters at the five addresses on Tuesday to verify whether Bellwether’s readings are correct.

In an email to Bly, Darnell Woods of Bellwether explained that in the cases where Bellwether’s readings were higher than the city’s, this could have been because of lag time between when the city read the meters versus when Bellwether read it.

“Note the last date that we surveyed was 8/6/2018, those meters were read by the City of Franklin 7/23 and 7/24,” Woods said.

Despite the preliminary results of Bellwether’s audit, Councilman Greg McLemore said he still has doubts as to the accuracy of the city’s utility billing.

“In the past, I have expressed I was out of town for a couple months and had all my breakers shut off… my bill stayed the same,” McLemore said. “A week ago, I was at my neighbor’s. We both live alone. The differences in our utility bills was literally one penny, and I thought that was very, very strange. You’ve got two houses across the street from each other but their electric bills are only different by one penny. I’m talking about the entire utility bill, not just electric … when you talk about the different uses of electricity and water, it’s hard to explain.”

Bellwether will perform a third phase of its audit before a final report is released, which will involve examining the accuracy of the electricity usage reported on monthly bills compared to the meter readings.

This will be done for the same 823 properties surveyed for the visual meter inspections.

A start and end date for phase three has not yet been determined.