Last Thursday, KFDX-TV spoke with a Wichita Falls family that said their water bill shot up by four times — from an average of around $80 per month to $405.

The city said the family used around 58,000 gallons or 78 units in one month.

Since that story aired, the city has replaced the family’s meter, however the story seems far from over. Hannah and Josh Jones have lived in Wichita Falls with their two kids for the past 18 months, and they plan to take the issue up with the city council tomorrow.

The city’s director of finance, Pat Halverson, said the Jones’ bill was making up for the city underestimating their water bill for several months. Deputy City Manager, Jim Dockery agreed.

“And honestly, we made a mistake in not catching the fact that this particular account was continuously estimated for numerous months,” Dockery said.

Since the story aired on Thursday, the family said members of the city have been out checking their meter multiple times, even removing the old meter.

Dockery said the old meter should have been reading at seven to eight units per month — based on reviewing data.

However, from May 27 to Monday, the family says the meter has only read their usage at four units.

“I don’t think it’s possible just for the fact of how much water it is,” Josh Jones said.

Josh Jones said city officials told him on May 27 they came by to check the meter and because their reading was so high, they went out to check it again to make sure it was accurate.

Jones said he never saw a city vehicle stop, and when watching his neighbor’s surveillance footage from that whole day said city worker only walked by and did not check the meter.

When questioned about that, Dockery called another city official who said the city realized their error on May 27 and went to physically check the meter on June 1.

Then, when Josh Jones went into Dockery’s office during a break from his job, in order to confront Dockery on the discrepancy, he claims he was laughed out of his office.

“I mean he serves the community and country for 11 years and he’s asking for help and answers and he laughs him out of the room,” Hannah Jones said.

While Dockery said Josh Jones was not being agreeable.

“Well, I mean…. he wasn’t listening to the explanation and we were trying to explain the circumstances and work out an arrangement. He felt like that we needed to cut his bill — or this problem wasn’t going away for the city of Wichita Falls — and he was going to make a lot of publicity out of it. So there wasn’t really anything that we could do,” Dockery said.

“And they asked me what I thought we should do and I said I would like to go back to my original reading. Take an estimate of my past 18 months of living here. Estimate it and that’s what I’ll pay,” Jones said.

Dockery said the city hopes to work out a payment plan arrangement, while the Jones family says they are not responsible for the city’s mistakes.

We also spoke with District 4 Councilor, Tim Ingle on the phone, who said the city should possibly take half of that billing responsibility. And in the future, he thinks there should be a statute of limitations on how far back the city can correct its own billing errors.