Anacortes water billing accounting is unfair to La Conner

On February 8 the Town of La Conner paid the City of Anacortes $6,940 for reconciliation of the water bill from 2020. The real amount owing was $3,068. Anacortes owes La Conner $3,872.

The problem was that the city’s finance director failed to recognize that the former mayor committed the city to follow the Gray & Osborne study of 2005, which allocated customer records based on the number of accounts, instead of number of gallons of water usage. With 8,295 accounts in the water system, mostly in the city, it makes a big difference.

Secondly, he failed to follow the budget for 2020, which called for a 50/50 split in allocating the cost of Foster Garvey attorney fees. He allocated these costs based on water usage.

It was also noted that accounting errors amounting to $154.40 were evident.

According to the Dec. 30, 2021 state audit report, the City of Anacortes made a profit of $2,197,437 from operations of the water system during 2020.

Yet, they charged the regional customers $330,538 for water reconciliation.

I appeared before their city council, and at a meeting of the finance committee, but was unsuccessful. The Anacortes finance director says that we will never see “eye to eye” on the accounting for water. I will not give up.

Sincerely,

Dan O’Donnell

La Conner