The city of Jackson took several shots at JXN Water in a report submitted in federal court yesterday. JXN Water Manager Ted Henifin fired right back at Jackson in the press release posted below.
City of Jackson Finds No Magic Water System Cost Savings – Interim Third-Party Manager to Pursue Essential Rate IncreaseAfter decades of underinvestment in Jackson’s water and sewer systems led to their
complete collapse in 2022, the City, State, and Federal governments agreed that a
trustee was needed to restore service and put the systems on a viable financial and
operational footing. Ted Henifin, a nationally respected utility leader came out of
retirement to do just that.
Decades of the City underfunding the utility led to a self-imposed loss of City
governance. Even a 2013 federal sewer consent decree was not enough to convince
the City to change its ways. The City ignored the Decree requirements leading to
literally thousands of days of violations. The City still is not in compliance with most of
the requirements of that Decree. When Judge Wingate took over the case and asked
the DOJ attorney whether the City had made progress during the 13 years the sewer
consent decree was in place, he conceded that no progress was made.
Given the City’s relentless recalcitrance to take needed steps to ensure people had
accounts, that the accounts were paid, and that rates were adequate to fund the utility,
the parties agreed that the Trustee would have the power to act unilaterally to raise
rates. That power was an important inducement to Mr. Henifin (and any trustee who
may follow him). If the City could veto financial decisions going forward, any Trustee
(and the water/sewer systems) is destined to fail.
In yet another case of not letting good financial management get in the way of good
politics, the City remains opposed to the pending rate increase. The City demanded an
extended period for its financial consultant (who lacks utility experience) to review the
minute details of JXN Water’s finances to find cost savings. Despite instruction from
Judge Wingate to ignore questions about sanitation fees that JXN Water owes to the
City, the consultant appears to have put the City’s interests first and focused his review
on that issue while effectively ignoring the water/sewer financial details. Based upon
billing system access logs, we don’t believe the consultant spent any time actually
looking at the financial details of the water/sewer system. The City’s review of JXN
Water’s finances was a red herring – as JXN Water has long argued, including to Judge
Wingate.
After hours on December 19, the City issued a report which opposes the rate increase
and essentially urges JXN Water to (1) pay the City’s water system debt obligations first,
(2) live within inadequate means to provide water/sewer service to the residents of
Jackson, and (3) hope the legislature will send money or some other financial miracle
will happen.
No one should be surprised that the City has gone back to the “pay us first and run it
into the ground with what may be left” well again rather than taking the mature step of
complying with Judge Wingate’s orders and federal and State legal requirements – all of
which require this rate increase.
The rate increase will allow JXN Water to pay enough of our bills to keep our
contractors working. It will allow us to borrow money to keep sewage in the pipes –
sewage that is running into our streets and streams every day. It is essential to access
future borrowing.
The City has a choice: support the rate increase that will allow JXN Water to make the
City’s debt payments or don’t support the rate increase. The City can’t have it both
ways – by wanting to be paid first without a rate increase. Doing so is obviously
contrary to the Trustee’s legal and ethical obligations and a betrayal of the water/sewer
system users.
Ted Henifin is one of, if not, the best utility managers in the country. He and his team
have truly worked miracles to bring the Jackson water and sewer systems back from the
dead. He is an expert federal utility trustee supported by a team of leading industry
experts. He has determined that the rate increase is essential for him to comply with
Judge Wingate’s order, federal and State law and, most importantly, his responsibilities
to the residents and businesses of Jackson.
We have come a long way together. Bringing the water and sewer systems back from
the dead was never going to be easy or cheap. Mr. Henifin has determined that this
rate increase and the borrowing it will support is essential. It is the most affordable and
effective way to maintain water/sewer service while complying with Judge Wingate’s
order, and applicable federal/State requirements, and most importantly, his obligation to
the residents and businesses of Jackson. It is time to move forward.
40 comments:
If the COJ was run by whites, the EPA would have frog marched all of the people responsible for this 20 year fiasco to jail. I still can’t believe some of the communities located down river of Jackson haven’t filed suit for the literal river of shit sent their way directly by the incompetence of the Jackson administration.
Thanks for reassuring me that moving away from Jackson, and Hinds county was once again the right thing to do.Not to mention the much improved school opportunities. ExJxnCitizen.
Ted’s solution: charge those that are paying even more. The water access fee that he has added to everyone’s meter is unlawful and it’s time for someone to step up and challenge this nonsense in court. My meters, which I have three of, added almost $300 a month to my water service and this is an unlawful fee added to try to rob Peter to pay Paul.
You gotta go after those non-payers before you penalize the people who do pay. Once everyone is paying, we can then look at a reasonable rate increase.
For the Palace Of Monkey Moat (COJ) which owed $6.5M in arrears to state Hennifin needs to collect unpaid water bills to rectify financial shortcomings created by the Palace Of Monkey Moat is worthy of The Queen Of Hearts in Alice's Wonderland.
Yeah, the statement is 100% true, but it over loads on praise of Henifin.
Here, here!
10:11 everybody has to pay…including a price to be paid for electing certain people who foul things up. Water systems require competent people to run them. Jackson hasn’t had that and the water system declined accordingly. Now that competent people are at the water dept again, the city leaders fall into that same old habit of fouling it up again by telling the competent people what and what not to do.
Henifin desires the praise.
The $40 fee is not unlawful according
to state law.
Based on what I read, Trump or some King should knight him! Ted Knight, or better yet, Ted Baxter!!!
You have to get the money from those who have the money.
This is what ALWAYS happens with cases of deferred maintenance. It costs more to fix things than to maintain them. Jackson chose not to maintain the water system, so it now costs a $#!+ ton of $ fix it. Your elected “leaders” caused this. Congratulations! You get to pay for their poor decisions. If yall would leave the man alone, let him do his job, and support him, you will get through this a hell of a lot faster and cheaper than you are with your “leaders” and community organizers harassing him with hearings and lawsuits. But, that’s what Dems do when competent adults are in charge, right?
You are eactly right. Period.
The city is low iq central.
Henifin and his group have done an extraordinary job. When it all first started and he was posting daily to do lists of what needed to be done and what they had done, it was enough to blow anybody's mind. City of Jackson basically was operating off of 2 buckets and one had a hole in it. Amazing what has been done.
City of Jackson is worthless. Bravo to 10:12 for calling it Palace of Monkey Moat. All they want is the ability to go back to the old way, give water away to friends, family, and "supporters". And if they could get their dirty little hands on some money while doing that, just icing on the cake.
I would trust a homeless person more than anyone with the City of Jackson. Hopefully the legislators will grow a damn backbone and get something set up for the water dept.
And the commenter who is bitching about the cost of his/her water bill----instead of bitching abut Henifin, where's your bitching at all the folks with city of Jackson who CAUSED all of this in the first place?!
It was all a stall from the outset. Wingate is either a fool or an unwitting dupe or both.
The water access charge should be called a facilities charge, and it is charged by almost all utilities including electric and natural gas. You pay it whether you use any commodity or not each month, because you are reserving some capacity on the system by being connected.
It's "hear, hear."
I gots me straight pipe hookup that a plumber friend of mine done did. Free is good.
But, but, but now the Horhn administration wants the citizenry to take over park maintenance.
Horhn thinks all he needs to do is coo magic words into the ears of his former fellow Senators and they'll look right past all the dysfunction and shower Jackson with state dollars.
Just go ahead and give it back to the COJ so they can fuck it up again, we need some good comedy next year.
December 23, 2025 at 10:11 AM
If COJ didn't have a bond payment that is almost certainly to be defaulted breathing down their collective necks you might have a point.
11:24. Don’t know your background but you and I could have spent upwards of $300M and be in as good or better shape than Ted has it.
Get the collections up!!!
And he deserves it as well.
And why doesn’t KF publish the fire hydrant story? Fix or bag the bad hydrants ASAP!!!
I did a month ago. Read the damn website, dummy.
I wish Henifin would pack his bags and leave this hopeless shithole to fend for itself. It would be so funny to watch these incapable complainers tread water and then sink.
Jackson ran this system into the ground with a lack of investment, a lack of management, and just flat incompetence. The taxpayers of the US gave Jackson $800 million. The other water/sewer systems nearby go nothing. Instead, they worked, managed, improved, etc. Now Horhn and his administration say it wasn't enough. They think the Jackson citizens should get more help from the state taxpayers. Let's make the citizens of Tupelo, Brandon, etc. pay for their own water/sewer systems AND Jackson's system as well. Because the Jackson residents are too privileged to lift a finger to pay for their own. I'm beginning to think the new administration is no better than the previous.
Ted ain't perfect. He's made some mistakes. But he inherited a system that was a catastrophe. And now it is far improved.
I'm to the point where the government should fire Ted Henifin, give Jackson their system back, and demand that Jackson repay all federal funding they received. Let these lazy crooks in Jackson run it and live with the consequences.
Every citizen in Jackson should be ashamed. They can't even say thank you for the $800 million. They aren't going to be happy until they get more. They are the biggest free loaders I know.
Looking for "AMEN LIKE" button.
My house has 2 meters, as I paid to add 1 for my sprinkler system many years ago. The 2nd meter is no longer used and hasn't been for quite a while. Regardless, I'm charged $60 a month for "water availability" to both meters. I wouldn't mind paying $20 a month for the unused sprinkler meter if the thousands of people who reportedly pay nothing for water, sewer and garbage pickup were required to pay for those services.
I’ve never seen a better argument against universal suffrage than this self elected clown show.
The $40 fee is not unlawful under state statute, except for the additional part of Henifin''s plan that is to waive it for SNAP receipents. That part is unlawful, and I'll bet will be challenged in court. The state statute passed following his attempt to charge based on the value of one's house requires all similar users to be charged on the same basis - thus, the $40 access fee for all residential users of a certain size meter is legal. But waiving any part of the fee for some users without it applying equally to others is not legal; while they have not been able to widely apply this waiver due to their inability to get the SNAP rolls from MDHS, they are waiving on individual basis to individuals who personally present evidence that they are SNAP receipants. That, @11:00, is unlawful according to state law.
11:10 I agree 100%.
Madisonites (Madisonians, Madisonistas?) speak arrogantly of JXN because they are upstream from the shit show.
Why are you hung up on what Henifin calls revenue? He was either going to raise rates to get the same amount of revenue the water availability fee generates or call it a water availability charge. Either way it’s just revenue for the system.
@10:11 the water access fee is not unlawful. i think every water system in the state charges one. Usually it's called a "base rate". Most aren't as expensive as Jackson's, but everyone charges one. I live in Madison and have Bear Creek Water. The water base rate is $12.25. It does include the first 2000 gallons. But I pay $12.25 even if I use ZERO in a month. CMU, Madison, Ridgeland, Flowood, Brandon, Pearl, etc. also do the same thing.
Everyone knows that water in the COJ is free. Even the Horhn administration gives its stamp of approval on free water. And you Republican voters expected something different, didn’t you?
Madisonista here - when I flush JXN Water issues a boil water notice.
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