Time or really.

I'm going to call to order the Water Quality Committee meeting.

Started for Wednesday, May 13th at 4 p.m.

Please call the roll.

Martinez.

Present.

Morris.

Call Mibes.

Kramer.

Williams.

Two present but also present are council members Gaddis, Jones, and Serantu.

Alright, fantastic.

Well, thank you everyone for our attendance.

I appreciate your uh willingness to come at four o'clock on a Wednesday meeting.

I know it's the end of the uh the day, and I appreciate everyone's willingness to uh swap and answer some of our questions.

So the way this will work is we're gonna we have three items on the agenda.

Um, water non-payment plan process, so that would be the water shutoffs.

Thereafter, an update on the AMI meter project in terms of how we're progressing, and then the spent line contract um legislation 0185-26.

With that being said, director, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, thank you for having us.

Um, Megan Robeson, Chief of Operations for the City of Toledo, Patika Bannister, Director of Public Works is joining me.

We also have members of our public works team who are here in case we have additional um questions that need to be answered by more of the uh divisional experts.

Um, as uh Chair Martinez mentioned, are going to go through the residential disconnection and reconnection plan, the AMI project update, as well as then the spent line legislation that we have on the agenda.

So, first for the residential disconnection reconnection plan for non-payment.

Um, as we move towards resuming residential disconnections, it is our goal to ensure access to water while maintaining a fiscally sound utility.

During our presentation today, we will review the history of the water affordability task force and water moratorium, our utility payment process, our discount programs that we have available for residents, our process for non-payment, and our approach for outreach and communications to our residents.

I'm gonna turn it over to Patika to walk us through some of the presentation.

So in 2019, the Consumer Protection and Water Advocacy or Water Affordability Task Force was created to foster collaboration between the Department of Public Utilities, City Council, community organizations, and residents, whose work was instrumental in creating various initiatives under the Department of Public Utilities Consumer Assistance Program or CAP.

So you can see here on the slide a number of programs that were instituted, including monthly billing, debt forgiveness program, um, uh low-income household water assistance program or uh LIWAP, and uh community technology um workshops that we presented, the financial assistance for residential customers.

Um you can see some of those listed here in the framework.

Um debt relief allows the utility to recover revenue.

Our revenue allows us to develop and execute solutions to the challenges that we and other utilities nationwide encounter.

We have three residential paths that I will discuss quickly here.

Um the first path is when the payment is received by the due date.

This is where the monthly invoice is mailed to the customer.

The customer receives an invoice, and then the customer pays the invoice, our process for non payment single family, be the monthly bill is mailed, the invoice is due, there is a late fee that is applied, the monthly next monthly bill bill is mailed, the financial final notice is mailed to the landlord or the tenant, seven-day notice is posted to the door, the water service is disconnected, and there's a door tag left.

The customer makes a payment or signs up for a payment plan.

And then finally, the service is restored within 48 hours after payment or a payment plan.

The process for a non-payment multi-unit customers.

Monthly bill again is mailed.

An invoice is due, the late fee, late fee is applied, the monthly bill is mailed, a hang notice letter is listed on each unit, a seven-day notice is posted to each unit and office door.

So as we mentioned previously at the beginning of the presentation, maintaining water service is our priority, and we want to ensure every resident has the information they need to avoid service interruption.

If a resident faces a potential water shutoff due to nonpayment, there is a five-step communication process really that they will that we will work through with the city of Toledo that residents will receive.

Step one is going to be that initial bill.

It all begins with that monthly invoice.

This is mailed directly to the resident and it outlines the current usage and of course the total amount due.

We then have the second step of this process, which is the first reminder.

It is the initial if the initial payment is missed, a notice of non-payment will be included and mailed with that next monthly bill to the resident.

This serves as a secondary reminder for that resident to help hopefully settle that balance that's owed.

If that is missed and there's no contact made by the resident, then we then they will receive a formal warning.

Should the account remain unpaid, we would move to this stage of the process.

A final notice and an eight-day occupant letter would be mailed.

This provides a specific window of time that action needs to be taken before the further steps that the city of Toledo would move into.

If again no contact is made and if the bill should remain unpaid, then there is actually a physical property notice that gets posted on the property.

So we'll bring the notification directly to that property to that home with a seven-day door hangar that's posted.

It's highly visible.

There's an example of it here on the slide of what it looks like, and that is really the final notice that they're going to receive before there could be an interruption of that service.

That final step, step five, is actually that service disconnection.

If no payment or arrangements have been made to be set up on an installment plan, service will be turned off.

At that time, a water disconnection posting is done on the property, and it also provides information on how to be reconnected.