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Massachusetts attorney general's office outlines low-income discounts, arrearage programs and hurdles to completion
Summary
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s Division of Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy briefed a PUC convening on low‑income discounts, arrearage management programs and efforts to raise participation and completion rates.
Attorney general’s office staff summarized Massachusetts protections for customers facing disconnection and described ongoing advocacy to improve program completion and accessibility.
"The attorney general's office houses the ratepayer advocate in Massachusetts," Jessica Friedman, Assistant Attorney General in the Division of Energy and Ratepayer Advocacy, said. She outlined statutory low-income discount rates (offered by every electric and gas company) and arrearage management programs (AMPs), which provide debt relief when eligible customers make required monthly payments.
Program details and scale: Friedman said low‑income discount rates reduce total bills by roughly 25–40% depending on the company; one utility recently approved a tiered discount that ranges from about 32% to 71% for the lowest income tiers. Statutory eligibility references were identified: AMP and discount program floors are tied to 200% of federal poverty level (FPL) and state HEAP/LIHEAP eligibility that in Massachusetts approximates 60% of statewide median income in practice.
Operational challenges and advocacy: Julian Aris, Assistant Attorney General working on affordability, said AMP completion rates are generally low — often near 30% in some utilities — and that customers can involuntarily exit AMPs when they miss consecutive payments. The AGO is promoting best-practice changes: extend the ability to enroll for longer than one year, increase grace periods for missed payments (for example a minimum 60‑day cure window), simplify outreach language (use "income‑eligible" rather than "low income"), and improve data reporting so the commission and advocates can track participation and outcomes.
Funding and cost allocation: Friedman noted revenue shortfalls for discount programs are typically recovered from all rate classes in Massachusetts; the AGO has modeled statewide recovery factors and continues to examine distributional effects.
Ending: The AGO said it is pursuing a collaborative best-practices working group with utilities, community action agencies and advocates to make iterative improvements to AMPs and other affordability tools.
