COPPERAS COVE, Texas — The Copperas Cove City Council decided to manage their 14,000 water utility customers in house. The council made this decision at a special meeting on Thursday.
City Manager Ryan Haverlah has worked to break down the city's options since outsourced utility company "Fathom" abruptly announced on Nov. 9 it was going out of business.
"Typically when an organization is moving from one service or software to another service or software, that happens to impact 14,000 customers, that is a year-long process if not more," Haverlah told the council. "Unfortunately we have days."
When Fathom shuts down, Copperas Cove is planning to provide several payment options. This includes over the phone and payment by cash or check at their utility administration building starting Dec. 1. New bills may not be sent out for several months.
In order to provide water billing services in house, the council needed to quickly make decisions on personnel, a new space to provide customer service, on hiring a new software company, and much more.
With the approval of the council, the city will be hiring three additional customer service representatives and a billing technician. There are currently only four people available to handle the many customers that will be calling. This will cost the city $141,362.
The city will also need more space to serve their many water utility customers.
Haverlah said the city will open up suite B at the city hall to provide a temporary place to serve customers in addition to suite A. The city will also renovate the building at 305 South Main Street. It will cost $10,000 to open up suite B and $115 to renovate the older building.
In order to send out new utility bills and provide an online payment portal, the city needs a new software company to partner with. The council narrowed their decision down to two choices on Thursday. These include a company named Incode and a second named Starnik.
According to the city presentation, Fathom cost the city $800,000 a year and the new companies would cost less than half that amount. Although, they would not be providing customer service.
The city did not make a decision on software on Thursday as Haverlah needs more information on one of the companies.
The City of Copperas Cove wants to provide a full update to citizens on Friday at the Utilities Administration and FATHOM Public Forum. The forum will be held at 6 p.m. in the Civic Center at 1206 W Avenue B. The forum will include a question and answer session for residents.
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