Fort Lauderdale residents are demanding answers after receiving sudden, sky‑high water bills — some totaling thousands of dollars.
When we sat down with Mayor Dean Trantalis to review our CBS Miami investigation, he acknowledged the spikes and said the city is now looking into the most extreme cases.
“For the most part, the bills that are being that people see that are increasing are a result of the investment in the infrastructure. Now, these spikes, where this one lady said 55,000 gallons were being consumed by her property. You know, I don’t know the answer to that, and that’s why we’re going to go out and investigate it,” Mayor Trantalis said.
The mayor said even he’s experienced the shock of a huge bill.
“I saw a spike in one particular month where my bill went up to over $1,200, but the city is responding to those situations. Clearly, you know, I didn’t use 30,000 gallons in one particular month. So the city has a program where we will give discounts, we will try to work with the individual homeowner,” he explained.
But that adjustment is a one-time deal; unless there’s a leak, then customers can apply multiple times.
We spoke to the city’s finance director about the increases in residents’ water bills
We took our questions to Fort Lauderdale’s Finance Director, Linda Short.
“Are you finding any flaws in the system, where, when something’s bill goes from $175 to $600?” CBS News Miami asked. “Not flaws in the system,” Short said. “What we’re seeing is utilization increase. We test meters regularly. I can tell you that it is very rare. I’ve been with the city for over 13 years. I can tell you I’ve seen less than a handful of cases where the meter is over-reading,” she said.
Bob Thomas was stunned when his December bill jumped $500. He wonders if it’s because of the old water meter.
“The sight glass on the water meter is unreadable. It looks like it’s scratched or is worn out,” he said.
“We don’t need to read all the numbers. We only look at the last three numbers on the meter. So they spray something on it to defog the glass. They read what they need to read,” Short explained.
New, smart meters are being installed that will allow homeowners to see real-time usage, meaning if they see a sudden spike, they’ll be able to look into it immediately.
More than 1,000 Smart Meters have been installed. Crews are putting in 100 a day, and soon that will go up to 400 a day until all 65,000 water accounts have the new equipment. That’s expected to be completed by mid 2027. At that time, a dashboard will be available so homeowners can monitor their water consumption in real time.
