Why is the water bill for small customers in Jackson 4 to 12 times more than the average bill for small customers in Flowood, Ridgeland, and Madison?
It’s primarily because JXN Water is run by an interim manager appointed and supervised by a federal judge. The interim manager runs JXN Water as an officer of the court — not as a local official accountable to voters. The judge seems to be accountable to no one. JXN Water “governance” looks more like a commissariat than a municipal utility board. So I call the interim manager the Water Czar. This is the first in a series of articles about JXN Water and the Water Czar. His edicts make Jackson residents pay more for bad water service. This adds to the problems of crime and urban blight that make living in Jackson challenging — especially for Jackson’s poor. If you’ve been overcharged for water due to meter-reading errors, estimated meter readings, no readings at all, the Water Availability Charge, or other billing issues— and couldn’t get anyone to fix it, paid anyway so your water wouldn’t be cut off, or had your water cut off despite paying — let us hear from you. Please email biggerpiewater@gmail.com with your story. We want real stories from real customers for this series. JXN Water’s rate is $6.00 per ccf (hundred cubic feet) of water used plus a Water Availability Charge (WAC) of $40-200 depending on meter size. If you are a small user (6 ccf per month) with a 5/8” meter (typical Jackson residence), your bill is $76 per month — $36 for water you actually use plus $40 for the WAC. If you are a small user with a 2” meter, your bill is $236 per month. By contrast, a typical small user in Flowood pays $1.70 per ccf or about $10 per month, $16 per month in Ridgeland, and about $34 in Madison. There is no WAC or its equivalent. The monthly water charge for small users in these cities varies from $10 to $34, with a city average of about $20. Thus, if you are a small user in Jackson, your monthly charge for water may be 4 to 12 times higher ($76/20 - $236/20) than the Flowood-Ridgeland-Madison city average. And 8 to 24 times higher than Flowood’s, 5 to 15 times higher than Richland’s, and 2 to 7 times higher than Madison’s. Numbers are for water only. No garbage or sewage included.
If you live in Jackson, you are more likely to have your water cut off due to a billing error. You have no practical recourse but to pay the bill and/or a $100 reconnection fee. You may face a $500 fine if you turn the water back on yourself out of desperation while waiting for a JXN reconnect. It can be hard to pay your bill in time to avoid a cutoff if it’s more than JXN Water system’s maximum allowed payment. The system’s telephone payment portal is cumbersome and user- unfriendly. It provides no written confirmation of your payment, and you get little help with questions from JXN Water billing system staff or its outsourced customer service desk wherever it is. This inability to confirm customer payments in writing suggests weak internal controls and vulnerability to fraud and accidental disappearance of payments. This is especially troubling in view of the past history of fraud around Siemens meters and billing. The WAC discriminates against all small users — and especially those who happen to live in houses with large meters. The Water Czar apparently created the WAC to favor poor customers with small meters. But its $40 minimum charge more than doubles monthly bills for these customers — who are least able to pay. The Water Czar created the WAC after the Legislature rejected his proposal to bill based on appraised values of customers’ houses. It’s an end run around the Legislature’s requirement to bill based on usage. Its real purpose seems to be to charge for water based on perceived ability of customers to pay, not on the water they actually use. It’s right out of the commissariat’s playbook: “To each according to his needs. From each according to his ability.” It’s more appropriate for a collective than a democracy. Its effects are regressive. It hurts the poor the most. Its intent to socialize the cost of water makes it cost more for everyone. One effect, if not the real intent of the WAC, is to cover up failures to account for and properly use the $90 million of Siemens-related litigation settlements. They could have been used to help upgrade and stabilize the badly deteriorated physical assets of Jackson’s water system and to help modernize its archaic, dysfunctional billing system. They weren’t. The WAC is a flat fee poured into the same leaky bucket of past mistakes. It uses payments extorted from today’s captive customers to pay for yesterday’s failures. As a result, JXN water customers are overcharged and underserved. Many distrust the flawed billing system and resent the Water Czar’s arbitrary cutoffs and edicts. They want to be treated like customers, not serfs. To his credit, the Water Czar did repair and replace broken plants and mains inherited from the incompetent and maybe crooked (trial pending) ex-mayor. But he did little to restore customer service and rebuild customer relations. In fact, his WAC and shutoff edicts have made bad customer service and strained customer relations even worse. Jackson has enough problems. Concerned citizens are trying to help. The Water Czar’s edicts are unforced errors we don’t need. Let’s try to do something about them — starting with honest numbers, real accountability, and bills for water actually used, not for past mistakes. (The Judge announced a rate increase yesterday. It was recommended by the Water Czar nine months ago. It’s More Cowbell. Will explain why. Stay tuned.)
Kelly Williams is the Chairman of Bigger Pie Forum and the author of this post.
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53 comments:
It was, and will be, expensive to fix decades of bad decisions. To neglect something is a decision as well. Keep in mind the system is still being operated on an emergency basis by the court because there's a LOT left to fix that will take even more money and the citizens need clean reliable water now; though it may be expensive, at least it's available.
Poor decisions in the past can make the future VERY expensive.
Didn't do any research. Just running his
mouth like the city.
If I lived in Jackson I would not connect to city water. I would buy my own. I’d buy a compost toilet. No water no problem, no sewer no problem.
Water bills are based on what it cost to
run system and pay debt.
Pay your fucking water bill. Sucks to suck.
Ignorance
Elections have consequences.
Well Sheeeeeit.
What they be tryin now?
It is exhausting to hear the bullshit "build community relations" IT'S A WATER SERVICE pay your damn bills or stfu and go without water! Ted doesn't exist to be your emotional support buddy!
Stop criticizing the man that does NOT have to put up with this bullshit but saved the city anyway! Pick a fight with someone else please. Man, the "journalists" in this town know how to run anything good off!!
Jackson residents have voted for absolute sub 90 IQ retards to be mayor since Kane Ditto, literally every man that has been mayor should not be hired to fold towels, and now they want to bitch about paying to fix the system they broke?? Unreal.
Is Bigger Pie trying to get supporters on its other messaging by attacking the bad guy of JXN Water?
No analysis explaing why the base price is high, like their usual articles.
Kelly Williams in bed with Rukia? Did not have that on my bingo card...
But he did little to restore customer service and rebuild customer relations. In fact, his WAC and shutoff edicts have made bad customer service and strained customer relations even worse.
This is absolute BS statement Kelly. Customer service for water service from Jackson hasn't worked since Kane Ditto and the Siemens fiasco only made it worse. To allude that it was even acceptable is intellectual dishonesty.
Before Mr. Williams makes the claim that the meters are introducing errors or inaccurate he should prove it.
Is there any well-run city in the U.S. governed by Democrats? Who you want to move to any of these cities? Who wants to move to Jackson? NO one. It's such a pathetic ant pile. KF a few days ago show a bum sleeping on a city bench in front of the governor mansion with a statue of Andrew Jackson protecting him. Mayor, put this on a billboard on I-20 & I-55. They need to move the capital to Oxford.
And that is the bottom line.
He's clearly bitching about the 2" meter hooked up to his irrigation line. Hell, he probably never even received a bill previously. Damn you, Water Czar!
Have to wonder if the author was one of the NEJxners that Henifin caught without an account? JXN Water should publish the names of all the scofflaws they've discovered.
I’m so glad I don’t live in Jackson
Is he accusing Ted Henifin of fraud?
“Same Train Running Down The Same Old Track…”
On the bright side Jacksonians are getting off pretty light for their shitty leadership choices compared to the Iranians.
Yes, in fact, the people of Jackson voted for this when they voted for Harvey, when they voted to bring Harvey back, when they voted for Yarber, when they voted for Lubumble (TWICE!), and when they voted for all the other dumb@$$ council members, who got their unqualified friends and family hired into unqualified positions, and when they voted for every soft-on-crime judge and prosecutor, and so on and so on. Yes, Jackson voters, you voted for this. This is on YOU!
Woof. Good luck Jackson.
You will need it.
No mention of the $10 reduced water availability charge for SNAP recipients? Presumably, if you are too poor to pay for your water, you’re likely receiving SNAP benefits.
He didn't mention what it actually costs to provide the water. Without that, the discussion is meaningless.
There should be two options:
1) Pay your bill and have water
2) Dont pay your bill; Dont have water
But the morons in charge of that shithole cant grasp this kindergarten concept.
Cant wait til they 'free the water' from Ted. What could go wrong? lol!
This is also the bottom line.
My Bear Creek water bill in Madison is $14-19/mo. Total.
He has a major error. He mentions that Madison, Flowood, and Ridgeland have no Water Availability Charge or equivalent. That is 100% false. They do and it's called a base rate. It's the same thing, just a different name. But it's cheaper than Jackson's.
Evidently, Mr. Williams (or whomever) doesn't do math very well. I am a 'small' user of water in Jackson, with a 5/8" meter.
My WATER bill is $2 to $3 per month. There is an 'availabilty charge added of $40 - which is for water AND sewer availability, not just water as Mr. Williams in his pontification fails to acknowledge.
Those customers in Flowood he wants to use for comparison have a gigantic SEWER charge due to the idiocy of their operation - not under an interim third party manager, but under their local leaderships decision to construct their 'own' sewer treatment plant.
If Mr. Williams wants to do here (as he often does about Entergy and electric charges) about JxnWater and their charges, he should at least compare apples to apples. It appears that besides ignoring the sewer component of the availability charge, he has added the sanitation fee to arrive at his so-called $76 monthly charge for a small water user in Jackson.
If he wants to disagree, I'll be glad to show him my bill:
Water $2.56
Availability Charges $40
Sanitation (garbage) Charges $37.00
TOTAL - water, sewer and garbage collection $79.56
Next time Kelly, include the garbage and sewer for your Flowood comparison. Or maybe, just stay in your lane.
Having over $6M of water leaking at the zoo and leak reported to mayor’s office in 2017 sums up Jackson's problems. It’s always someone else's fault.
Crap
My irrigation meter in Madison just went to $46.50 base rate.
Madison the City may have a water availability charge but I don't believe that Bear Creek Water has one, and they also serve Madison the City. There is no such line item on my BCWA bill. Correct?
IMO, delaying the move to remedy the billing system has been a bad decision. JXN Water should have probably hired someone to manage that from the beginning. However, Henifin has explained himself over and over again that he didn't want the billing piece of it (City council forced that issue) and that he prioritized the more crucial tasks of restoring water and repairing neglected maintenance items over billing. Now, that the system is starved of revenue, billing issues are coming to a head. However, I have no sympathy for folks getting cut off who didnt pay anything towards their accounts for years and years. I too had billing issues and still have a billing issue with my irrigation account but you know what despite not receiving a bill I still call the JXN Water collections number, enter my irrigation account number, enter my credit card number, write down my confirmation number and voila! the bill is paid.... It's a miracle I tell you!!!!
The comparison water charges appear to have absolutely no basis in reality. Do better
This is why socialism never works and why anyone with any sense should have moved out of Jackson 20 years ago.
I have no doubt that Henifin will deliver a top notch billing system.
No mention of the debt payments the City of Jackson saddled the water system with requiring higher water rates to cover?
"One effect, if not the real intent of the WAC, is to cover up failures to account for and properly use the $90 million of Siemens-related litigation settlements." The "Water Czar" didn't do that. Those funds were not used for repairs to the water system or to pay down the bond debt related to the Siemens debacle. The previous administration and city council used it for various purposes. I'd bet some of those inspiring murals were paid from the water settlement.
It's really hard to contract something out that does not exist.
When Ted stood up JXN Water there was no functional billing system and the records needed to bill were either corrupted by mismanagment or compleletly missing.
Ted couldn't do everything, and it makes sense that he fixed the safety and reliability of the water supply and sewer systems first.
Safe reliable water and sewer service IS customer service whether or Bigger Pie thinks so.
@1:00pm Anyone with balls and courage to help change things stayed put. I love when fellow "Conservatives" are like RUN RUN!! ABANDON THE STATE CAPITOL!! Screw you dude.
Sounds like Mr Pie In The Face finally got a disconnect notice …
Harvey always played fast and loose with bond funding. His bait-and-switch on the convention center bonds being just one example. He damn well knew that the debt crap would hit the fan far after he was long gone.
ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION of water freeloaders and straight-pipers.
This entire drivel speaks to the billing side- without mentioning the revenue collection side ( or absense thereof)
Well, living or moving to JXN is a choice. The worse it gets, the more blame the city’s “leadership” will post on someone else. One day, the city will look around and acknowledge that Democrat policies do not work.
10:18 - I don't think your statement is in any way related to what he was conveying. Part of the job of the ITPM was to RESTORE customer service - it doesn't refer to the shitty version of it before JXN Water came in, it refers to the days when it existed at all.
And he's not full of shit. I live in Fondren and I pay my bill religiously on an account that's been established for decades and JXN Water STILL fucked it up. I had to get my senator involved to get it sorted out finally.
@12:19 Madison has a base rate, and Bear Creek does as well. It's not normally a separate line item. But the base rate (same thing as a water availability charge) is calculated in with the usage. In other words, you will get a bill even if you use ZERO water for the month.
How do you collect from people who have never set up an account? How do you collect from people who still have no meter? How do you collect from the owners of apartment buildings who have sought the refuge of the courts?
Ted was not suppose to get billing.
@3:10 PM - Thank you.
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