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HomeMy WebLinkAboutAgenda - 12-01-2008 - Mgr Info MEMORANDUM TO: Orange County Board of County Commissioners COPIES: Laura Blackmon, County Manager Willie Best, Assistant County Manager FROM: R. Kevin Lindley, PE, Engineering Specialist I DATE: 11/25/08 SUBJECT: Assistance for Low-Income Efland Sewer Customers At previous BOCC meetings during the discussion on raising the rates for Efland sewer customers, the BOCC requested information on the types of programs which may be available for assisting low-income residents with higher sewer bills. The following are either existing programs or previously used programs which may be able to ameliorate the burden caused by higher rates. Existing Pro rg ams The County's Department of Social Services (DSS) currently has a program to help customers with utility bills and other emergencies. This program, called Emergency Assistance (EA), offers up to $150 for customers who are in danger of having utility services disconnected. The $150 is the maximum amount available to the citizen in a six month time frame. It can be accessed all at once or in multiple installments during any six month period. To qualify, a citizen must be at or below 200% of the poverty level income for their family size (shown in chart below) and must have evidence that service disconnection is imminent, e.g. a letter from the utility provider. This program has the advantage of being an existing, funded program with which DSS is familiar and for which they have dedicated staff. The disadvantage is that there is a limited amount of assistance available every six months, so if an Efland sewer customer has already used EA for some other need in the previous six months, there may be no assistance available for the customer's sewer bills. 200% of Federal Poverty Guidelines for 2008 - (Monthly Gross Income Amounts) Family Size 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 200% $1,733 $2,333 $2,933 $3,533 $4,133 $4,733 $5,333 $5,933 Note: For each additional family member add $600 to the monthly gross income amount Samaritan Relief is an existing program administered by Orange Congregations in Mission (OCIM). Through this program citizens that are facing disconnection of water/sewer (or other utility) service can be qualified by Orange County Department of Social Services (DSS) and referred to OCIM or contact OCIM directly for qualification on a case-by-case basis. OCIM then gives up to $100 every six months to the customer towards their bill, in much the same fashion as the EA program detailed above. The assistance is in the form of a check made out to the utility from OCIM and the customer. Any citizen living in the Orange County school district is eligible for consideration, providing they meet either DSS income requirements of 200% of poverty level or below or receive OCIM's approval. The Town of Hillsborough's Water/Sewer Utility Fund provides a portion of the funding for this program. The money comes from interest on customer's deposits and from voluntary customer donations to Hillsborough's Water Assistance Fund. Hillsborough utility staff provide information about the OCIM program to customers who are having trouble paying their water/sewer bill. As mentioned before, Hillsborough is not the sole source of funding for this program. Therefore, the dollar amount of assistance to Hillsborough water/sewer customers is not limited to the funding the Town provides to the program. However, all the money donated by the Town to Samaritan Relief is earmarked for their water/sewer customers. This money is only made available to help Hillsborough customers with their water/sewer bills and if not used during the budget year the balance carries forward to the next year. Staff is currently in discussion with OCIM regarding Efland customer's access to this program. While it is clear that Efland customers who meet the income requirements would be eligible for .aid from the Samaritan Relief program, the burden this would represent to OCIM is unclear. The OCIM administration has a general idea of the needs of the community and a finite supply of funding for this program. The addition of this potential need due to increased sewer rates may limit their ability to help everyone unless they were to receive additional funding. This additional funding could come from a variety of sources. Hillsborough utility staff has indicated that they currently have a surplus in their OCIM account. The Town's utility staff is willing to allow Efland customers to tap into their water/sewer aid fund (pending Town Manager and Water/Sewer Advisory Board approval) at least temporarily. In three years, once the Efland Sewer Fund becomes self-supporting, there may be interest income (e.g. from capital reserve) that could be used to support this program in the amount necessary for its own customer's needs. Until that time, money could be designated from the General Fund to support the OCIM program. If new rates were to be implemented in January, there would be at least a few months to gather data on the amount of aid that is being sought by Efland sewer customers and budget funding support accordingly. The benefit of this program is that it is an existing program with which DSS is already familiar and which OCIM is used to administering. The disadvantages are the same as with the EA program run through DSS, namely the emergency nature of the aid and the six month dispersal window. In addition, if Hillsborough management does not approve granting Efland customers access to Hillsborough water/sewer aid money, the Orange County General Fund would need to make a "seed" contribution to OCIM to get the program started. Rogers Road Water Tap Grant Program In previous BOCC discussions on raising Efland sewer rates, the water-tap grant program used for the Rogers Road area of Chapel Hill has been mentioned. In this program, grants were funded by the Orange County General Fund and made available to citizens who met certain basic eligibility requirements (such as being current on their Orange County taxes) and whose income was less than 80% of the median income (Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines for the Raleigh-Durham- Chapel Hill area) for their size household. According to Tara Fikes, director of Orange County Housing/Community Development, this model for a relief program would not be applicable because it was designed to be a one-time grant program, not ongoing assistance. In addition, DSS staff believes a County run program designed for assisting Efland sewer customers would have to be opened up to assisting any qualifying County citizen with their sewer bills. Recommendations None of these programs are designed to provide ongoing assistance to customers. The existing programs are designed for customers who have temporary or occasional circumstances that make it difficult to pay their utility bills. The Rogers Road grant program was designed to help citizens with a large one-time expense, so would not be applicable to long-term aid. In addition, none of these programs has a mechanism to decide how much aid is needed in each circumstance, other than a cap on the dollar amount available. However, DSS Emergency Assistance is currently available to the Efland customers. Samaritan Relief would be available as well if money either from Hillsborough's earmarked funds or Orange County's General Fund was made available to OCIM to distribute to Efland sewer customers. If the BOCC wished to create a program that would provide ongoing assistance to needy families, staff suggests the following basic framework for such a program. Customers who are in need would contact DSS or would be referred to DSS by the Orange-Alamance Water administrative staff (who do the billing for the system) or by Engineering staff. Customers who qualify for the DSS EA program mentioned above and who were existing Efland Sewer customers could take a letter of qualification or some other written qualification notice to the offices of Orange-Alamance. Orange-Alamance would adjust that household sewer bill by eliminating the base charge portion of the bill. The adjustment would continue to be in effect every month until June 30. Every year on June 30 all adjustments would be removed and customers would need to re-qualify to be eligible for the adjustment. So, for example, if the proposed rate schedule is adopted the base charge for all customers after the first rate increase would be $12.96. A family whose water use is typically 4000 gallons per month would ordinarily have a bill of $57.96, but if they qualified for assistance their bill would be reduced to $45.00 ($57.96 - $12.96). For reference, the current bill for 4000 gallons per month is $19.70. The advantages to this type of assistance are three-fold. The program would provide a monthly benefit to customers that is relatively easy for Orange-Alamance to administer. The qualification process and criteria are already in place, since they would be the same as the existing Emergency Assistance program already being run through DSS. Finally, use of this program still allows customers to receive benefits from both the Emergency Assistance program and Samaritan Relief for either supplemental assistance with their sewer bill or for assistance with other bills. If any additional information is needed, please advise.