Hammond scraps 2,000‑gallon minimum, promises billing fixes after residents report triple‑digit water bills
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Summary
Council adopted an ordinance removing a 2,000‑gallon minimum charge for water service and committed to running billing error reports after multiple residents reported unusually high bills. Officials warned some grants could be at risk if rates were rolled back.
The Hammond City Council voted on Feb. 10 to eliminate the 2,000‑gallon minimum charge used to calculate monthly water and sewer bills, a change the administration said will lower bills for customers who use less than the minimum and benefit many low‑income and fixed‑income households.
Finance staff and the administration framed the change as part of a broader set of steps to bring the city’s water and sewer enterprise fund into balance. City staff cited a Wagoner Engineering rate study and a $5,000,000 water‑sector grant tied to meeting sustainable rates. As the finance director explained, enterprise funds “must be financially self sustaining,” and the department’s review showed the utility fund had been underfunded over several years.
The council adopted the removal of the 2,000‑gallon minimum after resident testimony about billing problems and meter misreads. Utility billing supervisor Shalita Moore described operational fixes: additional meter readers, leak‑adjustment forms, dye kits to identify toilet leaks and a plan to run an error report for the upcoming billing cycle to detect anomalies before bills are mailed. Moore said staff will issue credits for confirmed city errors and has increased in‑house meter reading capacity.
Some residents and a community speaker (identified as speaker 24 in the transcript) argued the council increased rates beyond the contractor’s recommended phasing and compressed multiple years of increases into one, with one resident saying, "You all increased it by 93%." Administration officials said the adopted rates reflect the 2026 fiscal‑year target in the study and that rolling back adopted rates could jeopardize grant funds or require repayment: "If we default on our rates being raised ... we could potentially have to pay back that $5,000,000 which has already been spent."
Councilmembers and staff agreed to continue exploring additional protections for customers, including possible sewer caps, sliding usage tiers, irrigation credits or automated meter reading systems. Staff said they will export billing data to identify outlier accounts and run routine error reports each billing cycle; residents asked for proactive outreach to elderly customers and retroactive reviews for prior high bills.
Next steps: administration will run the error report on the forthcoming billing run, review historic anomalous bills where feasible, explore options for sliding scales or caps, and report results to council.