Lake Jackson council adopts six-month utility payment plan to aid residents

Lake Jackson's City Council on Nov. 17 adopted a utility payment plan that lets both residential and commercial customers spread delinquent utility bills over a period of up to six months.

City staff told council the municipality currently manages about 19 payment plans and that a six-month limit is consistent with neighboring cities. The presenter said the policy is intended to avoid open-ended plans — "we just don't want to leave it open to where you have some people that are asking for a year or 2 years," staff said.

Council members asked whether the policy applies to both residential and commercial accounts and how the city handles special cases such as large, one-time water uses; staff replied the plan would be available to both types of accounts and that exceptions can be handled on a case-by-case basis. One council member noted the city typically writes off roughly $24,000 a year but said, "that's usually six and a half million dollars on water, so it's not bad," characterizing write-offs as small relative to total water revenues.

A motion to adopt the utility payment plan and procedure policy passed unanimously.

The council directed staff to consolidate the payment-plan policy into an ordinance for later review and to return with any cleanup language needed for codification. Staff said the policy is intended to provide customers "an opportunity to provide them the help" when unexpected short-term financial strain occurs.

What happens next: staff will return with ordinance language to codify the approved policy and implement the administrative steps needed to track and manage payment plans.