UPMC offers buyouts to older workers

PITTSBURGH — The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is offering buyouts to its older workers in a move to cut costs.

The nonprofit is citing slowing demand for its medical services.

UPMC said Tuesday it was offering voluntary severance to employees who are 60 or older and have at least 10 years of service. The offer includes medical and dental benefits and a one-time cash payment.

UPMC, which operates 22 hospitals in Western Pennsylvania, is the state’s largest private employer with about 62,000 workers. It is facing stepped-up competition from Highmark, which recently acquired the seven-hospital Allegheny Health Network and owns the state’s biggest health insurer.

Customers file suit over water meters

PITTSBURGH — Faulty radio-controlled water meters multiplied some customers’ bills by as much as six times, leading the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority to cut off service or threaten to do so, according to a lawsuit.

The lawsuit contends the authority knows there are problems with the meters, but that customer complaints are not being dealt with fairly or promptly.

Authority spokesman Melissa Rubin declined to comment on the suit, which was first reported Tuesday but filed last week by Susan Newman. The Millvale woman is identified only as a property owner served by the authority.

The water meter interface units, or MIUs, “are radio controlled and purportedly read the exact amount of water used by a customer.”

“Instead, these MIU systems have catastrophically failed and customers have received grossly inaccurate and at times outrageously high bills,” the lawsuit said. One customer was billed for using 132,000 gallons in one month on a vacant property, for example.

An authority news release in February says some of the 83,000 customers who received the new meters in September 2013 have had problems, which the authority expects to fix by July.