Audit Reveals $1.1 Million In Mistakes On Sacramento Storm Drain Accounts

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) - If you own property in Sacramento you pay a fee for your storm drains. But a new audit shows thousands have paid too little - or too much - to the tune of $1.1 million in mistakes.

The city's audit examined 12,000 storm drainage accounts and it turns out 2,500 of them have problems.

Nearly 1,250 Sacramento property owners were overbilled a combined $192,000. On the other hand another 1,250 accounts were underbilled $930,000.

That leaves the Department of Utilities nearly three-quarters of a million dollars short.

"Unfortunately, sometimes things fall through the cracks," said Jorge Oseguera, the city's auditor.

The auditor's office discovered the Department of Utilities has out-of-date records for thousands of its storm drainage accounts, which are billed based on a property's square footage.

Some buildings have newer additions with more square footage.

The department, which has laid off workers in recent years, would only know about it if staff checked records from the county assessor's office.

"In a perfect world they'd be verifying regularly," Oseguera said. "They haven't had the people to do it, that's one of the reasons."

A city spokeswoman admits the department wasn't aware of the issue until now.

"Quite honestly through this audit it was the first time we've been able to see these differences between the county assessors and ourselves," Jessica Hess said.

This could be good or bad news for residents. Property owners who overpaid will get a bill credit. But those who underpaid will have to back-pay to make up the difference, going back as many as three years.

The Department of Utilities has assigned a task force to verify and update the storm drainage accounts. It's a process expected to take several months.