Two years ago, cash-strapped Petersburg jumped at a deal that Johnson Controls Inc. was offering.

As it has done across the country, the energy and industrial giant offered to pay for installing automated water meters to replace Petersburg’s 11,500 old and outdated meters. The new meters would transmit water usage data to a passing truck and eliminate the need to send staff to physically check meters every two months.

The promise from the company: The city would be able to repay JCI from the savings the city would achieve from the more efficient delivery of water, from the reduced cost of meter reading and from the city’s improved ability to find and repair leaky underground pipes.

According to Petersburg City Attorney Brian K. Telfair, JCI botched the meter installation, adding to the financial problems the city now has and helping undermine the city’s relationship with residents who are in an uproar over huge water bills that are too often based on inaccurate readings of water use.

Mr. Telfair said he was shocked and dismayed at the problems he discovered after finally being asked to review the deal with JCI three weeks ago to find a solution.

In an interview at his office last week, Mr. Telfair said City Manager William E. Johnson III never allowed him to look at the JCI contract before it was awarded in 2014. Mr. Telfair also said he was never consulted when the city accepted the system four months ago.

Mr. Telfair said that he first looked at the contract in early February as resident protests over the problems mounted.

Amid efforts by Petersburg City Council to sever ties with him and Mr. Johnson, Mr. Telfair said he discovered that Petersburg officials apparently never required the company to “conduct any testing before the system went live to ensure it was working properly.”

Mr. Telfair said he has found evidence that JCI installed meters that “are not working properly” and that some meters “were installed backwards.” His also found that new meters never were installed at some properties.

The results have been disastrous for Petersburg and its residents, he said. The malfunctioning system “caused the city to first not send out water bills at all, then send out bills that were incorrect due to faulty readings, and now send out estimated bills.”

“These are systematic issues that make me question whether the system has worked since inception,” he said.

Mr. Telfair sent a letter dated Feb. 24 to JCI and its Petersburg project manager, Whitley Blake, demanding the company immediately begin tests on the system at its own expense to identify and fix the problems.

In a Feb. 26 statement to the Free Press, JCI responded that the company has “decades of experience and success in providing more efficient water meter systems, and we will work directly with the city to ensure the terms of our contract have been met.”

Water problems are not the only crisis Petersburg is coping with. At this point, the city is awash in unpaid bills, including more than $3 million due to the Virginia Retirement System to pay for city employee pensions.

Petersburg also is at least three months behind in payments to the Riverside Regional Jail, which has housed Petersburg’s prisoners since the city closed its jail in early 2015. The city also is three months behind on payments to the South Central Wastewater Authority that treats the city’s sewage.

The city’s problems have been compounded by lagging property tax collections that have fallen at least $3.4 million below expectations.

The City Council was to meet this week to continue closed-door talks on removing Mr. Johnson and Mr. Telfair and conducting a forensic audit of the city’s finances. But whether the city can afford the $120,000 it would have to pay in severance to Mr. Johnson and Mr. Telfair, and the estimated $300,000 it would cost for the audit, remains to be seen.