St. Pete woman gets $1,500 credit on nearly $50,000 water bill, but questions remain

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — 8 On Your Side is digging into St. Peterburg’s water billing problems after a woman’s bill hit nearly $50,000.

For nearly a year, Ashley Wright has been fighting a water bill she said she never should have received. Her account showed she owed $48,453.66 — an amount she said could bankrupt a family.

“I said, ‘How is it $40,000,’ we are giving water to everyone on the street,” Wright told 8 On Your Side.

On Sept. 5, one day after News Channel 8’s original report aired, the city acknowledged a problem with Wright’s bill and issued a $1,502 adjustment.

But documents show that adjustment was based on a “house-side leak” calculation of more than 125,000 gallons of Wright’s average consumption. A separate city work order lists Wright’s average consumption at just 1,300 gallons.

That discrepancy raises questions about whether Wright is still being overcharged.

After weeks of not responding to requests for comment, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch addressed the issue at a public event over the weekend.

“With over 100,000 billing accounts, we do have some anomalies and high water bills. We think we got most of that squared away between our estimating applications, which is being replaced with the new system,” Welch said.

Customer records also document back-to-back meter replacements and staff errors in the same timeline.

Welch said a new, multimillion-dollar billing system called Tyler is being rolled out to reduce costly mistakes.

“A big part of that is going to be the Tyler system, which is a multimillion-dollar system that impacts everything from permitting to billing and has not been upgraded in decades,” Welch said.

For Wright, though, the fight isn’t over. She’s still facing a balance in the tens of thousands of dollars and waiting for answers about how the city calculates credits.

The city told 8 On Your Side they credited Ashley for a cracked meter, but when it comes to usage, they labeled it as a private leak. What they have not explained is what formula or standard is used to calculate adjustments and why the city used more than 125,00 gallons in their adjustments to her bill. Those questions were sent to the City of St. Pete communications team and 8 On Your Side was still waiting on a response.