Water shutoffs open spigot on past due bills

City Hall was prepared to handle an onslaught of calls Tuesday as Water Division crews shut off service to customers for the non-payment of water and sewer bills.

But, said administrative assistant Bruce Keiser, as of 3:30 p.m. the mayor’s office had received a single call. Keiser said a payment plan was worked out with the caller so they could have service restored.

The shutoffs had the desired effect, as people turned up at the City Hall Annex to pay their bills – plus a $100 fee. This could be the norm for some time as 900 water and sewer customers with a total delinquency of $2 million have been warned of shutoff.

This isn’t the first they have heard of it either.

Efforts to collect the delinquent utility bills came under criticism about two years ago when the city listed around 2,700 properties in a tax sale. Members of the City Council questioned what measures the city had taken before the drastic step to put properties up for sale. The administration removed utility delinquencies from the sale but didn’t make for payments. At the direction of Ward 5 Councilman Ed Ladouceur, a committee was created to examine how best to collect payments due.

Ladouceur said Tuesday he identified the problem within “20 minutes” of the first committee meeting: the city wasn’t issuing past due notices.

“They should have been doing that years ago,” he said. Ladouceur said shutoff warnings should have gone out and followed up if payment wasn’t received.

Eventually that was the plan the city adopted, although it wasn’t until this week that shutoffs were made.

“You know why they didn’t send out notices [in 2016], it was an election year,” said Ladouceur. By the time the election was over, it was nearing cooler weather and the moratorium on utility shutoffs. In April the city stepped up collection efforts, again sending warnings of shutoffs unless the past due amount was paid in full or a payment plan was worked out. The effort was successful as the outstanding amount due was reduced from $3.9 million to $2 million during April according to Tax Collector Kyla Jones.

Jones said Wednesday services to about 20 houses were shut off between Monday and Tuesday, starting with the most back due accounts. She said in situations where shutoff crews found people at home they were given the opportunity to pay their bill by the end of the day without interruption of service or a fee.

But even with threats of shutoffs and a deadline, about 900 delinquents hadn’t responded by the end of April. David Bagian was one of them.

A Providence firefighter, Bagian was at the Annex Tuesday afternoon to write a $4,000 check, plus the $100 fee, to get his water service restored. Bagian couldn’t remember whether he received a warning, although he had a good idea of how he had come to owe so much in sewer and water bills. He was also past due on sewer assessments. (Water shutoffs are not made for delinquent assessment payments.) He explained he bought the property relatively recently, and while it is a single house the land is comprised of three lots with assessments on each of the lots. Not all the assessments were current.

Bagian said he was told after paying the amount due that it would be eight hours before service was restored. As it was already Tuesday afternoon, he didn’t expect water until Wednesday.

“I’m telling my wife to go to her parents,” he said.

Ladouceur is frustrated that it has taken so long for the city to clamp down on the delinquents, not that he is looking to squeeze them for the money.

“The fact of the matter is,” he said, “it’s the city’s fault these people are in trouble.”

With regular delinquency notices and a strict shutoff plan, Ladouceur reasons people wouldn’t have fallen so far behind that it becomes increasingly difficult for them to pay.