Overdue utility bills due soon: More federal money will help Stowe customers catch up

This allocation to Vermont is $15 million, added to more than $8 million last year.

“It’s just been the most awful year and a half,” Flint said. “I hope as this second tranche launches, people will be ready to apply for this.”

The new assistance is from the Vermont Emergency Rental Assistance Program and started accepting applications earlier in June. Eligible Vermont tenants can apply for help with up to 12 months of past due or current bills (up to a $10,000 maximum combined total).

Flint said that assistance goes well beyond electric, sewer and water services to include things like wood pellets, back rent, even trash pickup. Absent, Flint said, is internet.

The department’s home page — publicservice.vermont.gov — is constantly being updated to offer information and links to programs that can help. It may become as much of a go-to site as the health department’s section on COVID-19 updates or the Department of Labor’s unemployment section. Right now, there’s a link to the new assistance program, and others will be added later.

“Our home page is very active,” Flint said.

According to Stowe Electric Department general manager Ellen Burt, between August and December of last year, when the Vermont COVID-19 Arrearages Assistance Program was active, the utility received more than 100 applications, and Stowe ratepayers were awarded nearly $80,000 in grant funds to pay their bills.

When the program opened to water and sewer customers in mid-November, another 20 Stowe applications were received and ratepayers were awarded $22,000 in additional grant funds.

Stowe delinquent bills way up

For Stowe utilities, particularly the electric department, the pandemic put a significant dent in their bottom lines, as the past due amounts increased significantly with utilities unable to send out disconnect notices.

According to data from Stowe Electric, at the end of 2019, before the novel coronavirus was known outside the highest levels of world governments, the total past due amount was roughly $99,700. A year later, that had jumped to $346,000. By the end of last month, the total past due was $375,000.

“That is 3.75 times higher than usual,” Burt said in an email this week.

The 60-day-and-longer delinquencies painted a starker picture: at the end of 2019, the sum total of those longer-term outstanding bills was $32,000; by the end of last month, it stood at $306,000.

“That is almost 10 times the normal amount,” Burt said.

Burt attributes that to utilities being forbidden to send out disconnect notices to people who did not, or could not, pay their bills. It was similar to how landlords across the country have been unable to evict tenants during the pandemic.

“Electric arrearages have been relatively constant over the years,” Burt said, referring to the pre-pandemic period.

Town water and sewer delinquencies are less dramatic — there are fewer customers being served by the electric department — but trend the same way.

According to Stowe finance director Cindy Fuller, at the end of the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2019, the sewer department had delinquencies totaling $8,600, or about three percent of the total. The water department had just under $10,000 owed, about four percent.

Fast forward to June 30 last year, three and a half months into the pandemic, and that total was $38,500 for sewer (17 percent) and $36,000 for water (16 percent). As of the end of April, the percentages were about the same, with $42,380 in outstanding sewer bills and $37,160 for water.

Burt and Fuller both said the commercial sector is where most of the delinquencies can be found. At Stowe Electric, commercial customers made up 85-90 percent of the past due amounts.

As for water and sewer, delinquent bills are “heavily skewed to hotels,” according to Fuller. More than half, 57 percent, of the sewer bills that were more than 90 days past due came from Stowe’s hotels — 77 percent of the water bills came from that sector.

Flint said she and other public service department officials have heard of individual pandemic-related delinquencies around the state in excess of $10,000.

Push to push back deadline

Although the moratorium on disconnect notices sunsets July 15, it was, until recently, set to expire June 30, and there was a recent attempt to push it back further. But that received pushback from utilities and the state Public Utility Commission.

Stowe Electric filed comments June 14 encouraging the lifting of the moratorium, but said it will “continue communicating with customers who have past-due utility bills.” Burt said this week the utility will also continue to offer long-term pay agreements, as well as direct customers to the rental assistance program.

“The goals of Stowe Electric management and its commissioners are to support our community, its residents and, particularly, commercial ratepayers that were not open for business, or only for a limited time with limited capacity during the pandemic,” Burt said.