In April, EPA’s Water Infrastructure and Resiliency Financing Center released its compendium of “Drinking Water and Wastewater Utility Customer Assistance Programs.” The report, which catalogues various approaches U.S. water and wastewater utilities use to reduce the financial burden of water bills to customers in need, found that 29 percent of the 795 water and wastewater utilities surveyed offer at least one type of customer assistance program.
The study group included 620 utilities that serve more than 100,000 people (large water utilities) and 175 utilities that serve 10,000 to 100,000 people (medium utilities). Among these, 228 utilities – 190 large utilities and 38 medium utilities – offered 365 consumer assistance programs. Of those programs, 308 (84 percent) were at large utilities and 57 programs (16 percent) were at medium utilities.
EPA identified 186 consumer assistance programs aimed at assisting low-income populations and 124 programs intended to assist those suffering hardship. Most programs (155) offered assistance in the form of a bill discount, but 98 programs offered flexible payment terms and 87 offered temporary assistance programs. The report found that 65 percent of surveyed utilities spend less than $25,000 per year on their customer assistance programs.
To establish a successful consumer assistance program, EPA recommended utilities identify their target audience for the program, secure partners, analyze and select their options, determine their financial structure, examine potential legal and liability issues, train program staff, conduct public outreach and implement, evaluate and adjust the program.
The report includes several in-depth case studies of customer assistance programs offered by water and wastewater systems and a quick-find matrix that displays the type of program offered by each utility surveyed for the report.
AMWA and other water groups provided feedback to EPA as the report was developed.
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The compendium can be found online at http://1.usa.gov/1szQt4W.