NEW ORLEANS — When Adline Gaudin moved into her small, subsidized apartment in Gentilly with her young granddaughter in 2019, her Sewerage and Water Board bills were about $100 a month. Then they started doubling and tripling and, ultimately, skyrocketing into the thousands.
Gaudin figured there was a mistake. She started calling the utility.
“We've never used $1,000 a month in water. Or $2,000 a month,” Gaudin said, flipping through the billing statements she has dutifully kept in a folder. “That made me start to contact them to ask what’s going on with the bill.”
Instead of resolving the dispute, the problem got worse.
“No one returned my calls,” she said. “Nobody gave me any information about what's going on.”
Gaudin said she continued to call and talk to “very nice people,” but they were unable to pinpoint the issue or help her resolve her runaway bills.
When her statements climbed past $36,000 this summer, Gaudin received a delinquent notice warning that her water could get shut off if she didn’t pay the full amount plus disconnection fees.
“It's too stressful,” Gaudin said, choking back tears. “I've been trying to be normal in front of my granddaughter, but it's hard.”
It’s a story that City Council member Joe Giarrusso has heard all too often.
“Ms. Gaudin is not alone. This happens to so many different people,” Giarrusso said. “We shouldn’t be here after eight years. And it should be a two or three phone call thing and we've got it all fixed.”
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Even though the agency has decreased the number of disputed bills and repeatedly promised further improvements, Giarrusso says his office is still getting regular calls about out-of-whack bills.
That's why the council is now preparing to put out a bid for an outside company to immediately handle all billing disputes. The council allotted more than $3 million for the contract and is now preparing bid specifications.
“This is objective math and it should add up. And it's not,” Giarrusso said. “As long as residents such as Ms. Gaudin are getting bad bills, their credibility is cooked.”
To try and resolve her mounting bills, Gaudin hired a plumber. He found no leaks, but he did find a potential mix-up with the apartment’s water meters. Earlier, in March 2021, her meter numbers inexplicably changed on her bills.
“I had two account numbers,” she said. “Not one, two.”
Giarrusso said he doesn’t know what is more frustrating for consumers, the sticker shock of an out-of-line bill, or the labyrinth of trying to resolve it.
“They just get spun around so many times for such a long period of time, they don't have certainty, they don't have predictability and they don't have ultimately what's right, and that's an accurate bill,” he said.
Since WWL Louisiana started looking into Gaudin’s billing issues, two large credits have appeared on her account totaling $28,000.
She said she got no explanation from the agency, but she's grateful for the progress.
“Mr. Mike, thank you so much for helping me,” Gaudin said.
While the agency revised Ms. Gaudin's bill from more than $36,000 down to about $8,000, that amount remains impossible for Gaudin to pay.
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In a statement to WWL Louisiana about the situation, an agency spokesperson wrote, “Thank you for reaching out regarding Ms. Adline Gaudin's situation. We understand how overwhelming it must have been for her to see such a high bill.”
“Upon reviewing Ms. Gaudin’s account, we found that several factors contributed to the accumulation of her balance, including a period of very high water consumption, along with missed or insufficient payments. These factors together led to the accrual of fees and penalties over the past five and a half years.”
“After a recent communication with the customer, we were able to adjust her bill. These adjustments were consistent with those that may be made after a leak is repaired.”
“As SWBNO transitions into the Smart Metering program, customers will have access to their real-time water usage data so that they can see potential leaks immediately and address them so that they do not become lingering issues that can drive up a water bill.”
“A customer service representative will follow up with Ms. Gaudin shortly to discuss flexible payment options or any additional assistance she may need.”
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