Atlanta relaunches FLOAT to help manage past-due water bills

We're going to take a break from election coverage just for a minute and talk about this initiative that has been relaunched to help customers manage past due water bills. So Ray, thanks so much for joining us to talk about this. Yeah, Jasmine. So this is Float 2.0. So what that means, according to my notes, is flexible level options and affordable terms. This is a new initiative from Atlanta, the city of Atlanta. Plus their Department of Watershed Management. And how we got to this point, Jasmine, is you may remember a month or two ago, there was this audit that was done by the city auditor's office. It showed that Atlanta has $236 million in unpaid water bills. The city estimates that $150 million of that is what they call uncollectible. So that's debt that's more than 90 days old. They don't think they're going to get the money back. on that so with this program what it does it allows the qualifying single family residential customers and this is key the residential customers so the people that own their homes they can with balances that are at least 61 days overdue so more than two months due they can enter interest-free repayment terms of up to 36 months with a 2.5% down payment and they are also adding um qualified account adjustments late fee relief one-time grants and credits that is on the table. This is not a blanket forgiveness, according to DWM and Atlanta. This is just a way to get people who are struggling on their water bills to be able to pay down that debt as the city tries to get some of that uncollected debt back in. And I do want to play a clip here. From Councilwoman Liliana Bakhtiari, she's a member of City Council and she's also on the City Utilities Committee, talking about who they're going after in terms of this uncollected debt plus how this could benefit some of these residential owners that are qualified under this program. This is going to allow us to equip people with help as we go after bad actors like these large multi-family complexes. What we've seen for years in Georgia especially because we're limited as a municipality and the tools that we can where we can go after these individuals but they have shielded themselves behind vulnerable residents and said if you come after us you're cutting off off their water. It's time for us to go after them anyway, and make sure that we are equipping the residents that are being taken advantage of in those situations with the tools and the skills that they need to protect themselves. All right. So as a council member explained the, uh, the initiative, it started on Monday. It's going to run through January 31st. And it's a key point here because people have from that, from Monday. So yesterday until January 31st to meet in person. With a collection agent and then afterwards DWM or the watershed management who takes care of the water, they're going to start the process of residential shutoffs, which they did stop during COVID. So like during COVID, the city did not shut off any water. So they're going to go with the reprocess of that once again. But I do want to mention really quick, Jasmine, Councilwoman Bakhtiari, who you just mentioned there, she sponsored a legislation that empowers the Water and Sewer Appeals Board to be able to credit back some of the people that may have these huge, extravagant, exorbitant water bills of tens of thousands of dollars. They now have the power to credit back that account if they do so, if they find that that amount wasn't their fault. Understand. And is there a cap? I know they have like a specific timeline that they want to do this, but is there a cap on the amount of people that they can help? I think there is not right now. They did not go into that, Jasmine. But I think, as I stated, those people and homeowners who are 61 days or more overdue can qualify for this program, but they only have between now and the end of January to sign up for this program, just so the city can start seeing some of the uncollected debt. That they have accrued over the past few years. I understand, Ray. Well, Ray, thanks so much. Sounds like a good initiative here. So appreciate you for joining us to talk about this.