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City Council committee questions Entergy about service shutoffs, approves changes to S&WB billing system

The utility says prices went up for natural gas because of inflation and customers are also paying for outages that occurred earlier this year.

NEW ORLEANS — Entergy New Orleans says 38,000 customers have entered Deferred Payment Plans this year, because of recent high utility bills and some city council members want the utility to do “more” to help people pay their electricity bills.

Entergy officials met with council members on Tuesday during a city council committee meeting where Entergy New Orleans defended reasons for the bill increases.

The utility says prices went up for natural gas because of inflation and customers are also paying for outages that occurred earlier this year, at the nuclear plant that feeds Entergy substations.

Several council members shared their frustration with the burden left to customers. They want Entergy New Orleans to help pay those increased customer charges and they asked if the utility has considered forgiveness options.

“There are always conversations that are being had internally on how we can assist customers, even over the COVID period as we think about how other companies are doing in the industry, and so those are some of the things we are keeping an eye on to see how we can better assist…I won’t say that that question hadn’t come up…but also how can we help customers holistically, so there isn’t anything off the table,” Entergy VP of Customer Service, Sandra Miller, told council members at the committee meeting on Tuesday.

“But we have to look into any of those things, how does it impact the customer? How does it impact the company? And really, the impacts overall. Because anything that is not paid is shared with other customers. We want to make sure we are not putting all customers in a bad situation.”

Entergy New Orleans also defended its shut-off process saying they resumed in November after a hold was put into place to help people catch up on payments and that electricity shut-offs are an option of “last resort” and only after a customer has received two disconnect notices.

Changes to S&WB customer billing

New changes could be coming to the way the Sewerage and Water Board bills customers.

The council's Utility Committee passed the new measures yesterday which aim to improve its billing systems.

The committee approved rules that would require estimated bills to be based on the average of three previous meter reads that were read by an actual S&WB meter reader employee instead of billing usage estimations.

It would also set up a step-by-step dispute process which makes the council the final arbiter in customer billing disagreements.

The Sewerage and Water Board's current billing procedure is based on estimated meter reads and has faced several complaints from customers.

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