L.A.'s Controller Is Investigating After DWP Bills Jump by Thousands

Kenneth Mejia says thousands of frustrated customers have asked for help, while LADWP blames a hotter summer.

Micah Reed's latest bill from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power came to $3,322, for a house in the San Fernando Valley. He showed it to KTLA, and he's got plenty of company: City Controller Kenneth Mejia has announced an investigation into DWP billing, KFI AM 640 reported.

Mejia said his office has "received thousands of requests from frustrated Angelenos" about unusually high bills, KFI reported. Some customers say their bills tripled in recent months, climbing by hundreds or thousands of dollars. An online petition calling for an independent audit and summer rate relief has drawn more than 24,000 signatures, KFI reported, citing the Los Angeles Times.

The utility's answer is the weather. Joe Ramallo, LADWP's chief customer officer, said this summer ran far hotter than last, KFI reported, and the utility blames the air conditioning that heat demanded. DWP prices electricity in three tiers that cost more as a household uses more, and the top tier is at its priciest from June through September.

Prices have moved, too. Timothy O'Connor, the city's independent ratepayer advocate, noted that Tier 1 power rose from 22 cents a kilowatt-hour in January 2025 to 27 cents this month, a 23% jump, KFI reported. The newest change points the other way: LADWP's October rates charge light users more and heavy users less.

And when the utility dug into one famous bill, the biggest jump wasn't power. In an Oct. 13 statement on Canter's Deli, LADWP said the deli's electricity use stayed essentially flat, with electric charges up about 6.6% over three months. Water charges rose 21.6% and sewer charges 45%, a pattern LADWP said may point to a leak.

That's the useful part for anyone holding a bill like Reed's: look at which line jumped. LADWP offered Canter's an in-person field check of its water and electric service to hunt for leaks and odd usage, and the utility takes customer service requests by email through ladwp.com/CustomerService.

The bills have also walked into the mayor's race. Councilmember Nithya Raman, who's challenging Mayor Karen Bass, spoke outside an LADWP facility in North Hollywood on Monday alongside customers who said their bills had surged, ABC7 reported. She said bills are up 40% citywide under Bass and promised that, if elected, she'd audit the utility with Mejia, executive pay included.

Bass, for her part, urged customers to “pay whatever they can afford right now” and asked the LADWP board to pause shutoffs through the end of the year, ABC7 reported.

"It's a standard house, and we redid the house almost seven years ago," Reed told KTLA. "We put in brand new windows, brand new AC system."

Source: kfiam640.iheart.com, retrieved October 20, 2026. Other sources: ladwpnews.com, abc7.com.

From the Handbook: LADWP Bill Help: Six Programs, Two That Stop a Shutoff