Pauls Valley man receives water bill for $4.89 million

PAULS VALLEY, Okla. (KFOR) - Some residents are seeing outrageous prices on their recent water bill in Pauls Valley, including one man News 4 spoke with who has a bill in the millions. Turns out, there's a city wide computer issue causing numbers to be all over the place leaving residents like Michael wanting answers.

It's normally between $27, you know, in the winter and during the summer, I've seen it at 60 or so," said Michael Carden, a Pauls Valley resident.

This bill was way more than 27 dollars, though.

Carden's bill was $4.89 million, dated to auto withdraw from his account on Thursday.

"I mean, if I have every spigot in the house on wide open 24 seven, including the water hoses. You couldn't use that much," said Carden.

Carden, filled with disbelief, decided to show it to his wife.

"She didn't believe me at first. She's checking my bill....like yeah, that's $4.89 million," said Carden.

He said he went to the water department to get answers. They made a copy of the bill and promised to look into it.

"They were very nice. They were very helpful in everything," said Carden.

Though, two days later, he is still waiting for an answer.

When our News 4 team went to the water department, the doors were locked, and signs were posted showing they were closed for computer issues.

So, our team went to City Hall.

"We've had new water meters installed and we've had computer troubles. So it's a perfect storm and we are actively correcting it day by day," said Tawni Huggans, the tourism director in Pauls Valley.

"Those will be corrected. You can also bring them into water billing and they can adjust those bills for you," said Huggans.

Huggans confirmed that Carden's $4 million bill is a mistake and promised to talk to his bank if needed.

"Anything to assess the situation as it was an error on the computers part," said Huggans.

Michael gave an update to News 4 after he went back to the water department.

The department said they will send someone to his house to check things out and adjust the bill.

They also turned off his automatic payment and will turn it back on when the right number is listed.