New City Utility Billing System to Cost at Least $34 Million More than Originally Expected

City Light's new CEO has officially been on the job for a couple of weeks and already gets to announce that a city project is delayed and over budget. Fun! Seattle Channel

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Controversial new City Light CEO Larry Weis and other city officials announced yesterday that an overhauled billing system for Seattle utilities customers will be millions of dollars over budget and a year late. Welcome to your new job, Larry!

The technology project—which started during former mayor Mike McGinn's administration and will eventually replace the current 15-year-old system to manage billing and information for 400,000 utilities customers—was originally expected to be finished last year for $66 million. In November, the city council approved a delay and budget increase. The system would be done this April and cost $85 million, city utility officials said. Yesterday came yet another delay and another budget increase. The project is now expected to be done this fall at a cost of "more than $100 million," according to the city. Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities say the delay and cost increase are due to increased pre-launch testing of the system.

In a statement, Weis said other cities have incurred high costs "when a billing system is rushed into use. We cannot afford to make that mistake."

The Seattle Times reports City Light and Seattle Public Utilities will use cost savings from other projects to cover the budget increase, but officials won't say how high the total costs could climb.