Some Wellingtonians have received a nasty surprise in the mail as the city council works through a backlog of water meter bills.

Invoices are usually issued every three months after a water meter reading is taken, but one resident was recently sent three invoices at the same time.

The total bill was more than $850, which included water use as far back as a year ago.

Wellington City Council explained staff shortages had created a delay in processing and sending invoices. The council apologised and told the resident to expect a fourth invoice for the October reading in the coming weeks.

The resident said she was shocked the council hadn’t been sending bills on time.

“While I can afford it, I’m not entirely sure that everybody else is going to be able to. It feels like a lot of money to ask people to pay immediately five or six weeks away from Christmas in a cost-of-living crisis.”

It was revealed this year the council was accidentally undercharging for water meters, leaving the organisation with a potential $3 million shortfall.

Council officers recommended the shortfall be debt-funded rather than trying to recover it and a senior rates expert was seconded from Auckland Council to help sort out the problem.

Wellington does not have water meters across the whole city, but 2696 commercial properties have them as well as 610 “low-consumption” mainly residential properties.

City council chief financial officer Sara Hay said as of October 31 the total water meter invoices owing was $7.8 million, including invoices not yet due.

“We have been working over the past few months to catch up on a backlog of metered water billing. Since July we have sent at least one letter to all ratepayers with a water meter – at least 5000 letters in total.”

Hay said there had been significant staff illness because of Covid-19, which was acute between February and June.

“In some instances, water consumption readings could also not be obtained on a consistent basis. The problem has been compounded by staff shortages in the water billing area. We are working to recruit and also upskill new staff members. Additionally, we have had some billing IT system issues that we’re working to resolve.”

Hay said the delay to the October bills was because of “system issues” still to be resolved, which affected about 500 ratepayers with water meters.

The resident the Herald spoke to said they didn’t receive any heads-up from the council earlier about the problem.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have even thought that there was a bill missing from their quarterly accounts that they need to put money aside for and then all of a sudden you’ve got all three of them landing and the other one arriving within a matter of weeks and it all needs to be paid.”

It was the council’s mistake, so it should wipe the bills, the resident said.

Hay said there was no provision to write off rates, but the council was happy to work with anyone to agree on payment over a longer time.