Utilities, including Questar and Utah Power, assign account managers to answer questions or handle problems of their biggest customers, including school districts.

"We do recognize that errors do happen in billing," Utah Power spokesman David Eskelsen said. "We want to eliminate those. One of the main jobs our account managers have is to have a continuous dialogue and relationship with customers like school districts, so that the bills we send out are accurate."

But that system doesn't solve everything.

Jordan School District energy and utility resources director Duane Devey works with account managers. Devey cites a letter from Utah Power that suggests ways to solve meter reading problems.

The letter is 8 years old. And the problems haven't gone away.

"Those are the very kinds of customer service issues that we just don't accept as being reasonable service," Public Service Commission spokeswoman Julie Orchard said. "We have a whole group of people who . . . try to research (complaints) to make sure the customers out there are being treated fairly. . . . (But) we have to be able to hear from the customers so we know what the troubles are."

Billing inaccuracies have been "a gold mine" for businesses, said former utility bill auditing consultant Phil Snelgrove, whose business once listed some 600 clients, including nearly every school district in the state. His fee was half the take.

NUS Consulting Group boasts online that it has helped clients recover more than $4 billion in profits lost to utility companies in the past 70 years.

But utility bill auditing is not as lucrative these days, local consultants say. Utilities have tightened operations enough to put an end to Snelgrove's business. Current energy consultants, and energy managers in public schools, call bill auditing a fraction of their work.

"There is a considerable amount of wasted money (in schools) . . . this is one of them," Snelgrove said. "I wouldn't blow it out of proportion."

The $200,000 Granite recovers from utilities is small compared to the $2 million or more it saves through energy-smart practices and equipment. Its utility budget: $8 million.

Utilities also say their bills are accurate.

The Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities' error rate last year was about a quarter of a percent, and went either way, said finance administrator Jim Lewis. The industry average is about a half a percent, he said, citing the American Waterworks Association.

At the newspaper's request, Utah Power analyzed billing errors affecting the Davis, Granite and Jordan school districts — the state's largest — since 2002.