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(Bloomberg)
The Big Apple’s famous skyscrapers are draining money from the city’s coffers.
A stunning 15,000 aging water meters in some of the city’s iconic structures — including the Chrysler Building — need to be replaced so that the Department of Environmental Protection can bring in an additional $43 million per year, a report of the agency’s finances obtained by The Post shows.
The document details ways the department can save taxpayers more than $100 million a year by changing its policies.
DEP officials — who insisted they were already in the process of installing the new meters — will now scramble to replace them, an agency spokesman said.
The agency will replace 46,000 meters — both large and small — during the next three or four years.
The 15,000 identified in the report “will be given priority treatment,” spokesman Chris Gilbride said. The total tab for putting in new meters is $54 million.
Gilbride warns that large meters “are much more complicated to install and can require construction work in the street as well as water-service interruptions to large buildings.”
But the end result would bring relief to New Yorkers, who have been soaked with double-digit water-bill increases in recent years and are facing a 7 percent hike this year.
“Upgrading meters in some large buildings will help keep rates as low as possible for all our customers,” Gilbride said.
The agency last year paid consultant Veolia Water $4 million to find $100 million to $200 million in savings by 2016. The report identified $108 million to $130 million in savings or new revenue yearly.
The jackpot is in the meter upgrades, where a fleet of aging meters relies on outdated technology that forces them to underreport usage and underbill rate payers.
Gilbride pointed out that the DEP has replaced 431,000 water meters — mostly residential — since 2009. That’s nearly half of the city’s meters.
But the new meters are not without controversy.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has been railing against new Automated Water Meter Readers for months, saying his office is flooded with complaints from residents who claim they are overbilled — some by as much as $50,000.
The DEP has disputed de Blasio’s findings.
Other savings found in the report range from the mundane to just common sense. In each case, taxpayers stand to save millions of dollars.
The report demands that the agency ensure the right employees and equipment are sent to the appropriate jobs — which reduces delays and saves dollars.
It also says the DEP can save $4 million to $7 million each year by “improving sludge thickness,” which would cut back on the amount of sludge transported for disposal.
The report’s recommended savings total about 10 percent of the DEP’s $1.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2012, which ended June 30.
Other potential savings include $8 million to $15 million annually from getting better deals from suppliers providing goods to the agency, according to the study.
Specifically, the report says the DEP should identify work “being done by external contractors that can be done in house,” such as $4 million in 14 contracts for maintenance, repair and cleaning.