City of Lexington – Utility Billing Update

August 7, 2025
Over the past few weeks, our staff has been working long days — and even a few late nights — to process utility bills by verifying meter readings and comparing them to our billing software. It didn’t take long to realize there was a system issue generating inaccurate statements. We quickly reached out to the software technicians to help resolve the inconsistencies.

Several years ago, the City purchased automated meters for both water and electric service to collect customer data more efficiently. However, the system involves multiple software platforms:
1. The meter software (Company A)
2. The billing statement software (Company B)
3. The translator software that links the two (Company C)
4. The customer portal for viewing and paying online (Company D)

Somewhere between reading the meters and generating the statements, something went wrong. We enlisted industry experts from all vendors involved, who have been working closely with our staff for the past few weeks to identify and resolve the issue.

To make a long story short, many final bills had been either estimated automatically or manually adjusted. Continuing this way would have eventually caused a catastrophic failure of the entire billing system. Once we realized major corrections were needed to get all the software communicating properly again, we knew it would delay our regular posting dates.

I made the decision that it was better to be late than to send out inaccurate readings — a tough call, knowing it would cause frustration for some customers.

As of yesterday (August 7, 2025) at around 6 p.m., we were finally confident enough in the corrected numbers to post statements. We understand that some customers may see higher or lower bills than normal; this is common after a correction of this kind. A few commercial accounts were even significantly different.

To help ease the impact:
– No late fees will be charged for this billing cycle.
– No services will be disconnected this month due to billing issues.

Moving forward, the company that worked alongside our staff will continue to assist us for the next couple of months, monitoring the system and creating a plan to simplify operations and prevent future issues.

If you believe your bill is still inaccurate, we encourage you to call or visit City Hall so we can review your account. We ask for your patience — in some cases, we may need to take your name and number and follow up with you next week.

On behalf of the City, I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Being upfront with our citizens — even with unpleasant news — is something you should expect from your city staff and leaders.

Todd Finley
City Manager
City of Lexington

Announcement from the City Manager

August 1, 2025

Utility Billing.

One area of concern for many communities is the reliability of accurate meter readings and billing. It’s also one the areas that ruffles the most feathers. Lexington has invested heavily several years ago in new remote meters and monitoring to effectively and efficiently document utility usage and transmit that information to our billing software. One of the things I looked at when becoming your city manager on July 1, was how accurate are our readings vs how accurate is our billing. The staff in the front office have worked really hard and long hours evaluating and verifying all accounts, unfortunately through that process we’ve discovered some problematic aspects of our system. The main issue is the intermediate software program that transcribes readings with billings. This month we’ve run into some technical issues which require specialist to intervene and assist us in ensuring accurate statements to the customers. Accuracy in customers utility bills is paramount to transparency which builds trust. Because of this unforeseen issue, bills will be generated and distributed a few days later than normal. We will take into consideration that late billings equate to later payments so we will be available to discuss options for those who are negatively impacted by this situation. We are also arranging with industry experts to further educate us in the multiple software programs we utilize in metering and billing and looking into purchasing expanded services to avoid future issues. Our potential software upgrades will be of great benefit to our customers as early detection of water leakage and electrical spikes that help identify occasional problems in individual customers’ services.

We understand that any issue the city may experience can be frustrating to the customers, however we will work very hard to resolve problems and give you accurate information on what and why we’re doing to build and maintain a more harmonious relationship.

Todd Finley, City Manager
City of Lexington

Lexington’s History

Before the land run of 1889, a group of men from Lexington, Kentucky chose some prairie land by the South Canadian River to make a townsite. The day of the land run, the men boarded a train to Guthrie, the territorial capital, and staked their claim. That town became Lexington, Oklahoma. The oldest in the original Oklahoma Territory.

At one time Lexington boasted about 30 drinking and gambling establishments. Making the town, “The Saloon Capital of the Territory”. Lexington was nicknamed “The Sand Bar Town” before statehood. However, in 1907 the saloon era had ended because Oklahoma entered the union as a dry state and bar keepers were forced to close their doors.

The town flourished between 1907 and 1911 and became the trade center of south Cleveland County. Especially, when in 1911, a new steel bridge was built across the river connecting Lexington and Purcell.

In 1890, the population was recorded at 223 people. Now, over 2,200 people call Lexington, OK their home.

We invite you to become a part of our Growing Community

“Information provided by Lexington Chamber of Commerce”

Quick Links:

REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS ( ENDS 1/31/2025 )

RFQ FLOODING PACKET

Lexington Animal Shelter page.

https://www.lexingtonok.go

LEXCOMM for Apple

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lexcomm/id6661013716

LEXCOMM for Android

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.govoutreach.lexingtoncityok

PUBLIC HEARING NOTICE

City of Lexington

Lexington City Hall

Tuesday, March 4th, 2025

7:00 p.m.

111 E. Broadway, Lexington, OK 73051

The City of Lexington will be holding a Public Hearing on Tuesday, March 4th, 2025 at 7:00 p.m. at City Hall located at 111 E. Broadway, Lexington, OK.  The purpose of the hearing is to invite citizens for input on making application to the Okla. Depart. of Commerce for a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) to make improvements to the city’s streets. All citizens are encouraged to attend, particularly those of low and moderate-income levels.