To: Members of the Castle Rock Water Commission
From:
Mark Marlowe, P.E., Director of Castle Rock Water
Anne Glassman, Business Solutions Manager
Title
Water Service Disconnection Process Update
Body
________________________________________________________________________________
Executive Summary
The purpose of this memorandum is to update Commission on the water service disconnection process at Castle Rock Water (CR Water) during the pandemic and where the process is today.
Disconnection letters have not been sent out to customers since February 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. CR Water will be sending out disconnection letters on September 18th for those customers with past due balances. For those customers who do not exercise a payment plan option or pay their past due will be subject to service disconnection the week of September 28th.
CR Water has not been charging late fees, disconnection fees, or returned payment fees since March 2020 and continues to not charge these fees currently based on the extension of the Governor’s orders. CR Water also waived watering violations for the month of May.
Staff rolled out a customer assistance program in April for both residential and small business customers. Help and Hope Center has been assisting staff with the application process for residential customers and small business customers can apply on our website. As of today 77 residential and 55 small business applications have been approved and executed. Funds are still available for both these programs. Staff has reached out to customers’ multiple times in many forums including phone, mail, email and social media contact since the programs were launched in April.
Starting in September, staff will offer another generous payment plan for those customers who may not qualify for the plan rolled out in April or for those customers who just may need additional assistance. Customers are given the option to use either or both customer assistance payment plans. Both plans will allow the customer to defer the past due balance and pay back that amount over a 12-month period. If a customer enters into a payment agreement and defaults at any given time or becomes past due again they may be subject to disconnection of service and additional fees may apply.
Throughout the pandemic, staff has contacted local water providers several times to keep updated on timing of opening up the lobby to customers, disconnections of service, charging of fees, and general policies and procedures related to the pandemic. Some water providers started disconnections in July and some like us are starting in September, with others having no immediate plan to resume disconnections.