Just as the Sacramento Municipal Utility District is preparing to collect nearly $1 million from the city of Sacramento for unbilled electricity, the utilities company said Thursday it owes Sacramento County $1.3 million because of a malfunctioning meter at Sacramento International Airport.
The meter had been overcharging the county for more than three years, but SMUD said it didn't notice the problem until April because the dollar amount represented just 20 percent of the airport's $2 million yearly bill.
SMUD said they fixed the issue and are getting ready to pay the county, which faced a $123.7 million budget gap this year.
Paul Lau, SMUD's director of customer services, said the glitch was discovered during a routine inspection of the digital meter, one of two that monitors electricity at the airport. He said the overcharged amount is the largest he's heard off.
"We're glad to see that our inspection process is catching these really odd ones," he said.
The inspection was part of a plan to look at 86 sites with two meters that was put into place after SMUD found a meter wiring error at a city water plant had led the utility to underbill the city by about $300,000 a year. The Sacramento City Council voted Tuesday to pay the bill over the next three years.
SMUD is also inspecting about 250 digital meters like the ones at the airport and city water plant, Lau said.
