photo by: Journal-World illustration

A City of Lawrence utility bill is pictured in a photo illustration.

Though Lawrence city leaders have said they would like to expand the city’s utility assistance program, determining the details of that program will take time, and the proposed budget for next year does not include any funding for such an effort.

City utility bills have increased significantly in recent years, and the proposed budget for 2023 includes another increase. As the water/sewer, storm water and solid waste rates that make up residents’ utility bills went up over the years, commissioners more than once suggested expanding the city’s very limited utility assistance program. Some changes eventually occurred last year, when the city created an additional utility assistance program. However, that program, rather than using city funds, is funded by donations from other utility customers, and has provided assistance to only eight people so far. Exactly how the existing programs might expand is yet to be discussed, but city commissioners seem to agree that the city should help more people, especially as rates continue to rise.

Commissioner Amber Sellers recently suggested expanding the city’s utility assistance beyond what was done last year, and other commissioners said they would also be interested. Sellers, who works in state policy, said key considerations in her profession are the social determinants of health, or the economic or social conditions that influence differences in health. She said everyone needs utility service — and utilities, just like jobs, housing, transportation, and social or health services, impact people’s lives.

“We have to look at things from that social impact perspective as it relates to municipal governance,” Sellers said. “In my opinion, you can’t make sound policy decisions without doing that. And so this is a bit of a stretch for many because we haven’t often made those two connections together; they’ve been quite siloed.”

Sellers’ suggestion to expand city assistance came at a meeting Aug. 9, after city administrators proposed the largest water and sewer rate increases in recent years, and other commissioners indicated they were also interested in that discussion. The proposal called for increasing water and sewer rates by 8.75% in 2023, 10.5% in 2024 and 12% in 2025. Solid waste and storm water rates for 2023 have not yet been proposed, but using the 2022 rate models — which could increase or decrease under the 2023 proposal that will be made this fall — the utility bill of a typical customer using 4,000 gallons of water per month would increase from $115 to $145, or a 26% increase over the three-year period. Commissioners said they would like to look at ways to reduce the staff proposal, but so far only one cut has been identified to help accomplish that.

Though the rate increase won’t officially be adopted until the fall, the 2023 budget contains the spending on personnel, operations and capital projects that drives the rates. The commission will approve its budget for 2023 on Tuesday. However, it may be some time before commissioners discuss the particulars of expanding assistance.

Finance Director Jeremy Willmoth said staff is still in the process of evaluating what an expansion of city assistance could look like, and that analysis will not be complete in time for the approval of the budget on Tuesday.

As the commission looks ahead to that conversation, questions will include what income levels or populations the city wants to provide assistance to, how much funding the city wants to devote to an expansion and where those funds will come from. Currently, the city’s assistance programs serve very few people — a fraction of a percent of all customers — and commissioners have suggested multiple ways assistance might be expanded.

Who gets help

The city currently has two utility assistance programs, a long-standing program that provides a monthly discount to certain customers, and the program created last year that provides one-time assistance to customers struggling to pay their bills.

Under the utility discount program, which was created in 1999, only residents over 60 with very low income can qualify for discounted utility rates. To qualify for the program, which discounts 65% off participants’ utility bills, an individual must make below $14,168, and someone filing as head of household on their annual tax return must make less than $19,162. Only 75 households, or .002% of the city’s 34,847 utility costumers, receive discounted bills through the program.

The donation-funded program the city created last year does not provide ongoing help, and instead provides one-time assistance to low-income households that are behind or their bill or had their water service disconnected. Currently, 42 utility customers are donating monthly to the program, and eight customers have received a combined total of $2,260 in assistance from the program, according to Willmoth. The average monthly donation is $10, and the monthly recurring donations total $424.

As far as what expansion might look like, Sellers said she’d like to see city staff bring back multiple options, but that she is interested in targeting low-income residents with the most need. She said that could include those receiving housing vouchers, transitioning out of homelessness, or those whose income source is disability or Social Security benefits or other fixed-income source.

“There are so many different subpopulations that we could look into,” Sellers said.

Another commissioner interested in expanding assistance is Vice Mayor Lisa Larsen. Larsen said she thinks the city should take a look at both of its current programs and consider whether it should come up with a single program that provides a wider breadth of assistance to low-income residents more generally, not just those over 60 or those behind on their bills.

“To me, the big thing is simplifying it, because it seems like we’ve got two separate things going, and is that really efficient?” Larsen said. “Look at the cost of the program, if we set it under specific guidelines, like (participants) only have to pay a third or a part of their bill given their financial situation.”

Larsen noted that the city pays Catholic Charities $250 to process each application as part of the utility-donation program, and that the income thresholds to qualify for assistance under the two existing programs are very different. The donation-based program uses 150% of the federal poverty level, but Larsen said she wasn’t able to determine what threshold was used for the utility discount program.

“But it seems really low to me, and (the question is) whether or not we can come up with something just a little more equitable that would capture those most in need,” Larsen said.

Funding and timeline

Closely tied to how utility assistance might expand is how much funding the city wants to provide for the program.

Sellers said at this point she does not have a specific amount that she thinks the city should allocate to the program, as multiple factors will weigh into that. Those include information from city staff about the financial impact of particular expansions and what percentage of Lawrence’s population has low or moderate income or lives on a fixed income.

“These are difficult conversations around policy, and I feel like I need to have the data to make those recommendations and seek out the best policy that will be a benefit not only to the community, but also not create an imbalance in how the city delivers its services,” Sellers said.

As far as the timing of any changes, Sellers said she was open to revisiting the conversation on Tuesday during discussions of the 2023 budget, but that the commission needed more information before making funding decisions. She said when the commission officially approves the utility rate increases in the fall could be a good time to have that discussion, and she hoped to at least have the discussion sometime before the end of this year. She said she’d definitely like to have changes in place before the city discusses the 2024 budget in the summer of 2023.

Larsen also said funding would depend on what kind of expansion the commission comes up with, but her preference would be that the city does not use one-time money, such as pandemic relief funds, since it would be an ongoing program. Larsen said the city would definitely need to understand the financial impact of any expansion, and that unless a funding source was identified for 2023, she thought an expansion could be addressed in the 2024 budget.

“I just think we’re at the beginning of that conversation,” Larsen said.

The Lawrence City Commission will convene at 5:45 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St. The meeting will include the adoption of the city’s 2023 budget resolution.