ANCHORAGE (KTUU) Anchorage has around 26,000 street lights, all of them owned and paid for by different groups, but a recent report by the Municipality’s internal auditing department suggests the city may be paying for more than its fair share.
Municipal Manager Bill Falsey said in 2019, while involved with a state project, they noticed they may have been paying for some lights they never agreed to, so they requested an audit.
“It looked like, according to the internal auditor’s findings, that there were 221 street lights that we were paying for that it believed the state should be paying for,” Falsey said.
Those 221 street lights cost the city an estimated $177,000 per year, and that’s not the only thing the audit found.
“The internal auditor’s report suggested there were some number of lights on the edges that had been removed for road projects that hadn’t been removed from the utility bills,” Falsey said.
Meaning the city was paying for street lights that no longer exist. According to the report, nine Chugach Electric Association and four Municipal Light and Power lights that were removed during construction projects, but continued to be billed for some time after. However, CEA Communications Manager Julie Hasquest said the issue in their case was identified and addressed last year.
“Once that discrepancy was brought to our attention, the over-payment of the lights, the money was immediately refunded to the municipality,” she said.
The audit also pointed out discrepancies in ML&P’s total numbers for the city’s lights were off. The city was charged for slightly over 100 more lights than it actually has installed.
Falsey said that issue, and several other were addressed as a result of the audit.
“The internal audit itself mentioned that there were some number of lights it had found that ML&P shouldn't have been charging for us, ML&P reviewed those findings and agreed and already is working to remedy those errors,” he said.”
The main issue unresolved right now, what to do with the lights the state should be paying for, or even how many there are. Falsey says the city will conduct its own investigation to confirm the findings of the audit, as well as to calculate the total cost of these discrepancies, but until that investigation is complete, the city will be paying a little extra to keep the lights on.
Copyright 2020 KTUU. All rights reserved.
"street" - Google News
January 22, 2020 at 02:26PM
https://ift.tt/2NPwNYx
Report says city overpaid for years on street light electric bills - KTUU.com
"street" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Ql4mmJ
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
No comments:
Post a Comment