ATLANTA — Atlanta water customers owe $236 million in unpaid bills, according to a new audit of the city’s Department of Watershed Management.
The audit found roughly 25% of the city’s water accounts are past due. It also found 41,000 active accounts are in arrears, with residential customers accounting for the majority of overdue bills.
Atlanta City Council Utilities Committee Chair Dustin Hillis questioned the number of water shutoffs compared with the number of past-due accounts.
“25% of your accounts are in past due status, and there are 41,000 active accounts and arrears yet last quarter you only cut off 345 meters,” Hillis said.
The audit also found Fulton County owes the city $4.7 million for water.
“We have Fulton County where the full council has been asked to sell a jail who owes us $4.7 million just in water. This is wild. They’ll try to do that with Georgia Power, we’ll see how long your power stays on,” Hillis said.
Watershed Commissioner Greg Eyerly said the department is exploring new ways to increase collection efforts and could look at increasing water shutoffs for customers who do not pay.
Watershed leaders are also considering expanding an existing repayment program to make payment schedules available to more delinquent customers.
WSB Radio’s Graham Carroll contributed to this story.