DeKalb County now plans to end its long-standing moratorium on water service disconnections Sept. 1.
The county announced earlier this year that it would be ending the moratorium July 1. It was put in place in 2016 to prevent customers who received erroneous, often outrageous water bills from having their service disconnected.
Officials said at the time that most of the problems that fueled billing issues for tens of thousands of households had been resolved.
DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond said in a Monday afternoon news release that he still believes that to be true. But the two additional months will give residents “more time to pay their outstanding bills in full or make payment arrangements,” Thurmond said.
More information on handling past due bills can be found on the county website at dekalbcountyga.gov. Residents can also call 404-378-4475 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Monday through Friday to ask questions or open a dispute.
Installment plans of up to seven years may be available. There are also considerations being made for those whose ability to pay has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the height of DeKalb’s water billing saga, angry residents packed townhall meetings armed with inaccurate bills asking them to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. Billing was suspended altogether for some 37,000 accounts.
Then-interim CEO Lee May put the moratorium in place in Oct. 2016.
Since then, the county has replaced more than 80,000 defective or aging meters. It’s also equipped about 134,000 meters — or 70% of all those in the county — with electronic transmitters for more accurate readings.
Disputed bills have fallen from about 4,000 per month to 200, officials have said.
Still, the initial announcement about lifting the moratorium on disconnecting service for unpaid bills caused concern among some advocates and residents.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the National Consumer Law Center wrote a joint letter to the county last month, asking officials to reconsider lifting the moratorium until “sufficient safeguards” were put in place.
Dianne McNabb, DeKalb’s chief financial officer, said in a recent meeting that calls related to water bills have “increased substantially” since letters announcing the end of the moratorium were distributed to all county customers. She said more staffers have already been hired to deal with the increased volume.
“If they just call us,” McNabb said, “we will work very hard to help them.”
In addition to the generic letters sent to all customers, the county is in the process of directly notifying more than 60,000 residents with past due bills, McNabb said.
The first batch of those letters went out earlier this month.
Ashlee Neese’s disabled 65-year-old mother got one saying she owed more than $6,400.
Neese told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that her mother, a longtime Doraville resident, hadn’t received a water bill for years. She had tried to address the issue with the county years ago but eventually gave up.
“I understand you have to pay for water,” Neese said. “But if you have people calling in to pay their bill, and you can’t provide them a bill, that’s not my problem. And after so many years, how long should I be responsible for something you’re screwing up?”
During last week’s meeting of DeKalb’s water billing advisory board, member Jo Handy-Sewell described helping two elderly neighbors with a similar situation — and urged residents to be proactive.
“Just wishing and hoping it’s going to go away is not going to make it go away,” she said.
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