SAN ANTONIO - Your homeowners association dues may be going up - and it's all because of a $1 million mistake by CPS Energy.
The News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters uncovered a glitch in the CPS billing system. To recover lost money, CPS is now sending homeowners associations all over the city huge bills for thousands of dollars. In the end, you could wind up paying for them.
“That's crazy,” Edward Alford told us. “How can something like that happen?"
Edward Alford lives in the Trinity Oaks Subdivision off Highway 281. He pays more than $500 a year in homeowners association dues.
“Well, my biggest concern is that my homeowners association dues are going to go up,” Alford said.
Edward is worried about a bill his HOA just got from CPS energy for $52,000. The utility says it forgot to bill the subdivision for energy going to some of its street lights. It’s a mistake that dates back to 2005.
“Well, it's catastrophic because, as an HOA, you run a tight budget,” Pete Evans, Trinity Oaks HOA Board Member, explained. “You want to make good use of the homeowners funds. You don't stockpile a bunch of money for a rainy day fund.”
Pete Evans is on the Trinity Oaks HOA Board. He says the bill means they will have to raise dues or cut services.
“Any other business, if you forgot to bill someone for six to eight to ten years, and you just sent them a bill, they'd just throw it in the garbage,” Evans noted.
The News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters uncovered this is a mistake worth over $980,000 and goes as far back as 2002. 84 bills were sent out less than a month ago to customers; 74 to home owners associations.
“We had some process issues in our internal software systems that lead to this problem where the services that the customers were using were not getting billed in our billing system,” Polo Moncada, Senior Manager of Customer Billing and Accounts Receivables, told us.
We asked why homeowners have to pay for CPS's mistake.
Moncada answered, “Because we're a municipally owned utility and we're a not-for-profit utility, we cannot waive the charges. If we were to do that, then basically, that would be socializing the cost and all our other ratepayers would then have to end of paying for it.”
We also took homeowners concerns to Mayor Julian Castro, who sits on the CPS Energy Board.
"It's CPS's error,” Mayor Castro said. “And so, I believe that they should work with the homeowners association to discount the amount that is owed in some significant way. And give them flexibility in trying to pay that back."
We know the names of two other communities that got similar bills, but for much less; Stonewall Ranch and Stonewall Estates near I-10 and Boerne Stage Road. But CPS wouldn't tell us the names of any other community. Mayor Castro says he'll work to get us that information, so we can let you know.
