Great Lakes Water Authority creates income-based assistance

Eligible households within communities served by the Great Lakes Water Authority, or GLWA, will be offered credits on their water and sewer bills so that they pay no more than 3% of their household's annual income, GLWA leaders announced at news conference Wednesday in Detroit.

The Water Residential Assistance Program, or WRAP, was launched in 2016 to provide financial assistance to eligible low-income households in GLWA’s 88 partner communities in Metro Detroit. Nearly 40% of the state's population gets its drinking water services through GLWA and it provides wastewater services to about 30% of the state's population.

The WRAP program helps residents pay down past due balances and receive water and sewer bill payment assistance for up to two years. Eligible seniors and permanently disabled persons can obtain bill credit assistance without an expiration date. The program assists with bill payment assistance, arrearage assistance and conservation.

To qualify for WRAP, households must be in a community in the service area, have a combined income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, be primarily responsible for the water or sewer bill and have to reside in the home they rent or own.

Previously, eligible households were only eligible for $300 in bill credits annually. Wednesday's announcement marks the beginning of income-based credits.

Eligible households will get a credit to lower their payment to an amount that does not exceed 3% of the household's annual income. For example, a household with an income of $10,000 and an annual bill of $1,000 will be eligible for $700 in bill credits to lower the annual payment to $300.

"...Twenty five dollars is a meaningful amount in some communities, but not all and in our service area, need knows no zip code," GLWA Chief Financial Officer Nicolette Bateson said at the news conference. "There is need throughout our service area for homes that are facing challenges paying their bills, and ultimately we want to be able to prevent any shut-offs."

In Detroit, the water shut-off moratorium was lifted at the beginning of this year. More than 60,000 households have delinquent water debt that has totaled more than $85 million during the pandemic, but not everyone will have to repay it.

GLWA's announcement Wednesday follows its board's unanimous approval last week of an average 2.75% hike for both wholesale water and sewerage water rates for the 2024 fiscal year that begins on July 1. Last year, the authority hiked rates 3.7% for water and 2.8% for sewerage.

Under the rates approved last week, Allen Park will experience a 15.8% hike, Royal Oak Township a 13.9% increase, and Troy and Livonia's rates will be up 7.2%. The rate hikes reflect the cost increase per thousand cubic feet of water sent to those communities but doesn't include monthly fixed charges that vary by community.

Meanwhile, some communities will see decreased wholesale rates. Canton Township's rate will decrease 1.8%, Warren's 4% and Sterling Heights 1%.

Utica Mayor Gus Calandrino said his Macomb County community is probably one of GLWA's smallest customers and was dissatisfied with GLWA's new rate-setting methodology when officials realized that it would be receiving an increase of more than 9%.

"It was very disappointing because we did not change any of our accounts or contractually agreed factors. We run our city very conservatively, we left our factors as they were," Calandrino said. "Our consumption is actually going down, not up. We have a lot of seniors and folks on fixed incomes, and presenting them with a 9.4% increase is very unpalatable for us."

The amount a community pays is based on their use and unique characteristics of their community, Bateson said. Those characteristics can include new industrial users, which can increase community rates, and the amount of storage, which can decrease community rates.

Additionally, if nothing has changed in a community, but other communities have adjusted their unique characteristics, rates may be erratic for several communities, Bateson said.

The previous three years saw level rate adjustments, Bateson said, because member communities stuck to agreed rates and water volumes. This year, water shares were reset between communities. When communities negotiated for lower or higher volumes, the rest of the communities shared increases or decreases to meet GLWA's budget.

anichols@detroitnews.com