SNOHOMISH -- When Paige Doty got a bill from the Snohomish County PUD saying she owed $1,302.27, she thought it was a glaring mistake.

It claimed she had used 16,500 kilowatt-hours of electricity in the previous two months -- enough to keep 25 television sets running constantly for a year.

Her 1,900-square-foot rambler outside Snohomish was so new it still had a jumble of stumps and mud for a lawn. It had energy-efficient appliances and good insulation.

The bill in May was more than five times what the family had paid during the coldest winter months, and they'd left the house dark for 10 days while they went on a Caribbean cruise.

But there was the letter on the kitchen counter, informing her that while the bill had been flagged as abnormally high, the PUD had tested the meter and found it to be accurate.

"I just thought there's no possible way this is correct. ... This consumption is just outrageous," said Doty, a project manager for Microsoft. "I don't see how a logical person could even come up with how we could have used that energy."

After a winter when just about every PUD customer was shocked by high bills because of jumps in energy prices, some customers are still getting jolted.

The PUD says its error rate for meter reading is low, and that problems are rare. A computer program that flags bills that seem out of whack with past consumption only pulls out about three in 10,000.

But the utility believes it underbilled the Dotys for five months after they moved into the new home in October, and that the whopping bill is essentially a correction.

The first three PUD bills Doty received were for $125, $123 and $259. That seemed about right, since the PUD had set the family up on a payment plan of $100 per month that would cover costs throughout the year.

The utility says that the suggested payments were mistakenly calculated based on a home that uses gas instead of electricity for heat.

The PUD tested the Dotys' meter twice, and several weeks ago installed a digital comparative meter next to it. So far, the utility hasn't found any evidence to suggest the original meter isn't working properly, officials say.

When you average the energy consumption over the seven-month period, it's not unusual for a home of that size, said Neil Neroutsos, spokesman for the PUD.

Neroutsos said the utility is willing to work out a payment plan that will allow the family to pay the large bill over a period of time. But he said even though there was a billing mistake, people are still responsible for the energy they consume.

The number of PUD customers who have formally disputed bills, payments or deposits this year is 16 -- the same number of formal disputes during all of 2001.

So far this year, an independent hearing officer who listens to those cases has ruled in favor of the PUD in eight of 10 instances, Neroutsos said.

But Doty and her husband have heard so many explanations from the PUD, they don't know what to believe.

When Doty first called customer service, people asked if she had a hot tub or a heated driveway. When she showed up at a PUD commissioners' meeting several weeks later, top managers sympathetically agreed that the bill made no sense.

"I'm at my wits' end to figure out what happened ... but I assure you we're going to make some logic out of it," said Manly Kanoa, assistant general manager for customer service.

Doty also had her home-builder's electricians come out. They hooked up a machine that measured electricity coming out of the breaker box. When the furnace clicked off, they watched the levels on that machine fall while the meter kept spinning at what she called a "ridiculous" rate of speed.

The electricians told the PUD what they had witnessed, she said.

She has watched the meter like an overprotective mother ever since. Sometimes the meter showed they used more energy sleeping with only a fish tank and her 3-year-old son's nightlight on than they did during the middle of the day.

Since the PUD installed the second meter, they've both been functioning normally, Doty said.

Her husband, Troy Doty, a computer virus expert for Weyerhaeuser, doesn't understand how a meter could be misread three times in a row.

"That's their theory -- the only thing they could think of that could be wrong," he said. "They'll never say the meter malfunctioned. That's like a sacred thing."

But he said even if they were underbilled, holding them entirely responsible now doesn't seem fair. If they'd known the true costs, they could have done more to conserve electricity.

Troy Doty still has a hard time believing they actually used all the power they are being charged for.

"I guess we're a little paranoid now," he said. "Even though they're a public company, after what's happened, I just don't trust the whole situation."

Herald Net

-- Anonymous, June 15, 2002