Infante administration ignored utility collection loss now totaling $167.5K, official says

NILES

The city is launching an internal audit after discovery of an error in utility billing software that eliminated a $25 flat monthly fee for sewer services for 100 homes in Weathersfield Township for more than five years.

The lost revenue to Niles: $167,500.

“This was going on for 67 months,” said Ed Stredney, service director. “It was discovered by our [utility billing] employees more than a year ago who reported it to the previous administration, but nobody did anything about it.”

The city had been using software provided by the Canadian-based Cogsdale Systems of Canada. The software, however, had been plagued with problems since its installation in 2011, under the administration of then-Mayor Ralph Infante.

In November 2013, then-Auditor Charles Nader reported the city had spent $225,000 on what he described as “hit-and-miss software” and that he had stopped paying the $7,500 monthly fee for its use.

Stredney said the billing system previous to Cogsdale contained the $25 flat fee, which disappeared when the city switched providers.

The city subsequently terminated its relationship with Cogsdale and signed on with Continental Utility Solutions of Arkansas in 2014 at a cost of nearly $300,000.

He said a team of eight city employees will go through all 22,000 utility accounts in their internal audit, and that the process could take as long as two months.