Why is the water bill for small customers in Jackson four 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 four to 12 times higher ($76/20 - $236/20) than the Flowood-Ridgeland-Madison city average. And eight to 24 times higher than Flowood’s, five to 15 times higher than Richland’s, and two to seven 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.)
Kelley Williams, a Northsider, is chairman of Bigger Pie, a Jackson-based think tank promoting free markets and government efficiency.
