The Henderson Christian Community Outreach has agreed to administer a fund set up to assist residents who may have problems paying “catch-up bills” that have come because of a mistake by the Henderson Water Utility.
Both the city and HWU have contributed $25,000 to help those in need.
Susan Smith, the CCO’s executive director, said Tuesday the organization loves partnerships and a challenge, which this undertaking will be.
The program will offer up to $200 assistance per year to Henderson Water Utility customers who are at or below 130% of the federal poverty line, according to a release from the cith.
Funds will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis until they are no longer available, said the city.
To apply for assistance, eligible residents are encouraged to contact Henderson Christian Community Outreach at (270) 826-5592.
The HWU errors, starting last summer, occurred in the transmission of water usage coming from homes and going to the billing department. The water usage seen at the billing department dropped the final number of the total, leaving, for example, a 4,500-gallon water usage at a home to be seen as 450 gallons at the billing department.
This undercharge went on for months, causing some residents to rack up catch-up bills that HWU has just sent or will send soon. HWU said the catch-up bills will be sent to about 2,200 residents.
HWU has said that the errors began after the utility switched vendors from which they were obtaining new water meters. The vendor that HWU had received an initial 6,000 water meters had programmed them to transmit correctly before delivering them to HWU. But the second vendor didn’t program the water meters, which ultimately left about 2,200 meters to transmit the incorrect usage.
