This interview is based on a Port City Daily article.
Kelly Kenoyer: I'm here with Brenna Flanagan from Port City Daily. Thank you so much for joining us.
Brenna Flanagan: Thanks for having me.
KK: So you had a report out this week about water shut offs in the city of Wilmington. It seems like they're more frequent within city limits than elsewhere covered by CFPUA. So my question is, why?
BF: Yeah, so that's a question that one of the CFPUA board members, Jessica Cannon, put in an email that I found, and her theory is that, because city customers within CFPUA have city trash and Stormwater Services also included in their CFPUA bill, that their bill is higher, and therefore, if they can only pay a little bit of it, or they can't pay it because it's too high that, you know, becomes a problem for them.
KK: So I live in the city, and I know that when I look at my CFPUA bill, it's like 40-ish dollars for the stormwater and for the trash on top of the water bill. And I guess probably other people outside of the city also have to pay for those things. So why does that lead to more water shut offs?
BF: So because of CFPUA’s billing structure of including both the storm water and trash for the city, even though the city takes care of those services, all of those are included in one bill, which means if you can only pay part of that bill, then the first part of that money, so let's say you have $30 to give, all of that's directed to the city services first. Which means CFPUA gets paid last. So if you only have money for a part of it, that goes to the city. CFPUA water charges are left out, and that can lead to a disconnection because you didn't pay your water bill.
KK: So as an example, you know, I have this extra $40 charge on my city billing. If I got a bill for $120 but I only had, like, $85 to give to it, that would get my water shut off, potentially, if it happened too many times in a row, but if I didn't have those two bills connected, then I would never have my water shut off, right?
BF: Right. You could divert if you wanted to pay for the water bill, first, never have your water shut off and then pay the city separately.
KK: And it seems like this is statistically proven. A resident who's in the city of Wilmington, they're 28.5% more likely to have their water shut off.
BF: Yes. And so CFPUA conducted an analysis of this and even controlled for factors like whether they were a rental or a homeowner, whether they enrolled in automatic billing or not, and also controlled for factors such as income. So this is definitely a problem for city customers outside of any sort of other factors.
KK: So Jessica Cannon, as a board member of CFPUA, was trying to bring that to the attention of the city council members who are on the CFPUA board. So what's she asking them to do?
BF: Essentially, look at this billing structure and see if there's a way that the bills can be separated, and potentially the city could take over their billing for their services.
KK: Do you think that that would solve the problem, and is that something the city is going to consider?
BF: So when I asked both David Joyner and Shakima Clinton Quintana, they said that they are looking into the issue, but they don't really have an answer for me yet, which is fair. And so essentially, the bill – the amount of money you would owe – is basically going to stay the same. You'd still owe about $40 to the city for those services. It would just change who you're paying it to, and breaking it down further, could let you piecemeal the bills so that you could pay your water bill on time, not have it disconnected, and then pay the city, potentially at a different time when you have another paycheck under your belt, and that sort of thing.
KK: All right. Well, thank you so much, Brenna for coming in and explaining this story to us.
BF: Thank you so much.
KK: And if you'd like to read more about this story, go to PortCityDaily.com.
