WHAT'S THE ANSWER TO NON-PAYMENT OF MASTER METER WATER BILLS AT APARTMENTS

Seemingly, there is always a story about Shreveport water--the smell, the color, the taste and availability.

Starting in May of last year, availability was the key issue to residents in several Shreveport apartment complexes when the city of Shreveport cut off the water to the complexes due to non-payment by the owner of the master meter water bill. In recent years, this was a non-issue, or at least not a publicly known issue.

But suddenly, this has become a growing trend that now three complexes this year are facing water shut-off. This after the cut-offs at three complexes last year.

Many questions that have arisen is why the bills were allowed to become so high before action was taken by DOWAS officials and ultimately Mayor Tom Arceneaux. Without tracking down the total amounts of unpaid bills a quick guesstimate is about a million dollars for the six complexes.

Shreveport's Department of Water and Sewage (DOWAS) is an enterprise fund, which means it operates totally on the income it receives from water and sewage bills. Citizens are upset that their water bills have increased to pay for the Consent Decree requirements while out of town apartment complex owners have skated on paying their water bills.

The Shreveport City Council has raised the amount of the deposits that apartment complex owners must post for the master water meters. DOWAS has adopted a new protocol for dealing with overdue water bills. The Mayor has extended cut-off deadlines and instituted limited water access to complexes facing total cutoffs. But are these measures sufficient to lessen the likelihood of more excessive apartment water bills?

Abandoned apartment complexes almost always mean non-payment of city and parish ad valorem property taxes. This loss of revenue is further compounded by the additional services and costs that the city invariably must provide to these complexes--more fires, more crime, more property standards violations, and often demolition at the city's expense.

If the magic wand could be waived, all apartments would be separately metered so that each tenant would be responsible for paying for their water/sewage. This step is cost prohibitive for the existing complexes. But there are some additional preventive steps that can be taken.

The Arceneaux administration, the Shreveport City Council and the Shreveport Metropolitan Planning Commission should consider legislation requiring that future construction of apartment complexes must have separate meters for each apartment.
The Shreveport City Council should consider action that substantially reduces the delinquency period currently allowed for payment of master water bills by DOWAS.

The Council could also insist that Property Standards be more aggressive in enforcement against the complexes as a method of putting the owners on notice of diligence by the City that could help influence timely payment of the master water bills. Such a directive should include funding for additional personnel at Property Standards for such focused enforcement rather than diluting enforcement efforts throughout the city.

Landlords collecting water bill money as part of the rent who fail to pay the water bill are, in effect, committing theft/misappropriation of tenant funds. Any action by the city council is limited to misdemeanor charges, while the state legislature can make such actions to be a felony.

There is no doubt that additional legislation is needed on the state level to help arm the city with more options to address this situation that is compounded by the fact that the apartment complexes are owned by out of state legal entities that protect the individual owners.

Just add this dilemma to the list of unexpected municipal issues that Mayor Tom has encountered since taking office. But that is the nature of the job although seemingly more has been loaded on his plate in a shorter time interval than his predecessors.