Gilbert Study Session on Short-Term Rental Changes and Water Meter Audit - April 7, 2026
Gilbert Study Session on Short-Term Rental Changes and Water Meter Audit - April 7, 2026
The Gilbert Town Council held a study session on April 7, 2026, to discuss proposed changes to the short-term rental program and to receive a presentation on the findings of the water meter audit conducted by Kimley Horn. The meeting began with a roll call establishing a quorum. The item on the notice of intent to change short-term rental fees was postponed to a future date to allow for further council feedback.
Discussion Items
Short-Term Rental Program Update
- Ashley Namore, Business Compliance Project Manager, presented an update on the short-term rental program three years after adoption. The program currently has approximately 450 active short-term rentals with an average of 25 booked nights per month and a 98% compliance rate for licensing.
- Staff proposed changes to improve enforcement, including adding code language for court submittal for unlicensed or repeat offenders, increasing the monthly fine for operating without a license from $500 to $1,000, and increasing the licensing fee from $100 to $200 to make the program revenue-neutral.
- The notice of intent for the fee increase was postponed to allow for more council input. Vice Mayor Bon Giovanni asked why the proposed fee ($200) was lower than the statutory maximum ($250) used by other cities; staff indicated feedback could be taken and the maximum could be considered.
Water Meter Audit Presentation
- Tyler Kay and Paige Helfenstein of Kimley Horn presented the results of an independent audit of Gilbert's water metering infrastructure, data, and business practices. The audit analyzed data from January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2025 (six years), including nearly 50 million data points.
- Key Findings:
- Approximately 97.1% of active accounts (over 92,000) were accurate and reliable; about 2.9% (roughly 2,700 accounts) experienced at least one anomaly.
- Over 7 million billing transactions were reviewed; 99.5% were calculated correctly.
- The most common anomalies involved rounding errors, miscalculated consumption, multiplier settings, and billing codes.
- Residential accounts experiencing overbilling were charged an average of $125 over the six-year period (about $25/month over the average 5-month duration of the issue); underbilling averaged $110 per account.
- Meter multiplier issues affected 506 residential accounts (201 overbilled, 296 underbilled, 9 both). Average overbilling $58 total; underbilling average $1,200 total.
- Physical meter testing (363 of 451 meters analyzed) found that older Sensus meters were more likely to be outside tolerance; Mueller meters (newer) were 98% within tolerance. Meters failing tolerance averaged about 2% outside, costing affected customers an average of $34 total ($6/year).
- Over 99% of radio transmitters tested reported correctly.
- Recommendations: Prioritize AMI as a primary monitoring tool, implement automated multiplier health checks, add system flags for billing code mismatches and unusual usage, improve customer communication resources, and continue targeted meter replacement aligned with the capital improvement program.
- Staff Response (Hawkins): The town will review the final report (expected end of April 2026), validate findings, and issue credits/refunds for overbilled customers. The town has already begun strengthening processes.
- Councilmember Bucklin, who noted he is an affected resident, urged staff to ensure all owed residents are fully compensated. Councilmember Koprowski asked about meter replacement criteria (age vs. usage); staff explained they track both, with mechanical meters replaced based on volume (approximately 1.5 million gallons) and solid-state meters based on battery lifespan (age).
Key Outcomes
- The notice of intent to change short-term rental fees was indefinitely postponed pending further council discussion.
- The final water meter audit report will be posted at the end of April 2026 on KHWatermeteraudit.com.
- The town will directly communicate with affected customers and issue credits or refunds as appropriate; underbilling cases will be evaluated for fairness.
- The study session adjourned at 6:08 PM, to be followed by the regular meeting at 6:30 PM.
Meeting Transcript
Thank you. Oh, call the order of this study session. Roll call. Mayor Scott Anderson. Here. Vice Mayor Chuck Bon Giovanni. Here. Councilmember Bobby Buckley. Here. Councilmember Kenny Bucklin. Here. Councilmember Young Koprowski. Here. Councilmember Monty Lyons. Here. And Councilmember Jim Torgeson. A quorum is present. Thank you. We have two items on the agenda. Item number one will be a presentation on proposed changes to the short-term rental program. Hawkman. Thank you, Mayor and Council, just as a brief introduction to my staff that will prepare present on the short-term rentals. We had intended to provide this a study session overview of short-term rentals and kind of what's coming next. Tonight, there is an item on the agenda for a notice of intent to change the fees. We understand that that's a compressed timeline, and that is not what we wanted to bring. So we've asked to delay that notice of intent to a future meeting so that we can have this study session, get true feedback, and then bring forward at the appropriate time the right thing for council. So just for some clarity of what's happening tonight. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Ashley Namore. I'm the Business Compliance Project Manager here at the town of Gilbert, and I manage our short-term rental program. Give us just a second while we're pulling up the presentation. Perfect. So as Hawkins said, um, we tonight our purpose is just to share an update on the program with you. Um, given that we adopted this uh three years ago, some of you were here, some of you were not. Um so again, our purpose is to share an update on the program and to bring you what we will uh bring forward as potential changes later on uh in a few months. So, first, just a general definition for what a short-term rental is. Um, this is any property rent out for a period of 29 days or less. These are what we commonly see listed on Airbnb and VRBO, um, and they're currently reported in the hotel motel tax classification. Uh to provide a brief overview of what uh state legislation has looked like. Um, there's been uh quite a few Senate bills and house bills passed in the last decade, the most notable being Senate Bill 1168, which allowed uh cities the opportunity to closely monitor and track these short-term rentals. In response to that bill, uh Gilbert Town Council passed their ordinance in June of 2023, which is ordinance number 2874. For a current run through of what the short-term rental status is in the town of Gilbert, we have about 450 active short-term rentals. We're averaging about 25 book nights per month, so we are pretty busy. We're also really proud of the fact that we're 98% compliant with licensing for short-term rentals in the town of Gilbert. So we've come quite a long way in the last three years. Um, and then we do complete quite a few public records requests for this data as well. And this is an active map of short-term rentals currently in the town of Gilbert jurisdiction. We also wanted to share with you our short-term rental vendor and resources available to property owners and residents here in the town of Gilbert. So we're currently contracting with GovOS. GovOS is an online software that identifies documents and licenses all short-term rentals within the town of Gilbert.
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