‘Getting to the bare bones’: Beaufort Co. families struggle with utility bills during COVID-19
Electricity ratepayers in Beaufort County who are reeling from COVID-19’s economic fallout could be in for a rough September.
Chrystie Turner, vice president of community impact at the United Way of the Lowcountry, said she’s expecting more phone calls from residents seeking financial help once Dominion Energy lifts its temporary statewide moratorium on disconnections for nonpayment. That coronavirus-prompted suspension is set to expire Sept. 14 for the company’s roughly 54,000 power customers in the county.
Ratepayers out of work thanks to the pandemic, she said, could face months of unpaid bills.
“When you don’t have the disconnect looming, it’s kind of out of sight, out of mind,” Turner said. “That’s my greatest fear.”
She has good reason to worry: Nonprofits in Beaufort County have already reported an uptick in the number of people struggling to pay for basic utilities amid the state’s coronavirus outbreak.
The Deep Well Project, a nonprofit on Hilton Head Island that supports residents during financial emergencies, spent over $9,200 in June helping ratepayers in 54 cases.
A year earlier, however, the nonprofit in June 2019 provided only $786 to people in 16 cases who had asked for help covering electric and water bills.
Bluffton Self Help, another nonprofit, spent about $3,400 from July 1 to July 21 helping five local families keep their power on. The organization had provided just $200 to one family over the same period last year.
“I call them family-by-family bumps,” said Sandy Gillis, executive director of the Deep Well Project. “They have no safety net.”
“We are working really hard to make sure there’s no interruption of service,” she said. The requests, she added, are “going to continue to accelerate.”
Paycheck to paycheck
Gov. Henry McMaster in mid-March urged utilities across South Carolina to suspend disconnections for nonpayment during the rapidly-evolving public health emergency. The S.C. Public Service Commission later directed providers to follow the governor’s request.
But that requirement expired in May. And one local utility, Palmetto Electric Cooperative, has since resumed disconnections. The cooperative has more than 50,000 accounts in Beaufort County.
A spokesman for Palmetto Electric, Tray Hunter, said there wasn’t a significant year-over-year increase in nonpayment disconnections in June and July. The cooperative in 2019 averaged 175 of those disconnections per month. There were about 30 in June and at least 200 in July.
The cooperative, though, has noticed a spike in the number of customers who need payment plans to catch up on bills, Hunter said.
Payment plans are individual agreements where a customer can split their outstanding balance up into more manageable chunks. A family, for example, could make three $200 payments over a few weeks if they owed $600 in total. Palmetto Electric had about 500 accounts on payment plans as of July 21.
Hunter said almost all customers recently disconnected for nonpayment have since been reconnected after either paying their bills or being put on a payment plan.
During a normal year, he said the cooperative might have up to 50 accounts on payment plans at any given time.
“Folks who live paycheck to paycheck, they’re kind of in a snowball of getting behind,” added Kimberly Hall, executive director of Bluffton Self Help.
Anne Marie Ray, of Beaufort, understands how dangerous that situation can be.
Ray, a single mom who works at a loan agency in the city, recently asked the United Way for help paying some of her monthly expenses.
Her employer, she said, has cut a day of work each week due to the pandemic’s financial toll. And she’s now struggling to make ends meet.
The United Way assisted her with roughly $580 in electric and water bills, she said. The nonprofit also helped out with housing costs in July.
“I cried, I literally cried,” Ray, 38, said. “Having this help has been such a blessing.”
‘Bare bones’
The Deep Well Project, Gillis said, works with ratepayers once they’re on payment plans. If a customer still needs a few hundred dollars to balance an account, the nonprofit can help cover their bill.
The organization’s goal, Gillis said, is to make sure unemployed or sick residents don’t lose their air conditioning during the pandemic summer.
If a waiter contracts COVID-19, for example, they’re out of work for at least two weeks, she said. That could be a major financial hit.
And, if left with the choice of either paying for food or electricity, what would a worker reasonably decide?
“People are really getting to the bare bones,” said Turner of the United Way.
Beaufort County utilities, Gillis and Hall said, are easy to work with because of how willing they are to set up payment plans for customers.
But some ratepayers have a hard time sticking to their negotiated plans, Gillis said. They just don’t have any money.
That’s why, Hall said, “a small investment from us can make a big difference.”
“They’re one paycheck away from crisis,” she said. “That bill’s not going away.”
She added that cleaning service and restaurant employees in particular have been struggling with power bills during the pandemic.
The cost of water
At the Deep Well Project, Gillis said 10 families asked for help paying water bills in June. The nonprofit provided over $3,000 in response. There were no water bill cases at the nonprofit in June 2019.
The United Way, meanwhile, reported a 35% increase year-over-year in water bill assistance requests in June among Beaufort-Jasper Water and Sewer Authority ratepayers, Turner said.
Water bills, she said, are typically one of the lowest monthly payments a family has to make. It’s troubling that people can’t afford $30 or $40 in services, she said.
Those numbers, she said, illustrate just how devastating the pandemic has been to low-income households.
The BJWSA, which provides water to 55,000 customers in the area, has yet to resume cut-offs for nonpayment, said spokeswoman Pamela Flasch. Disconnections will start again in September, she said.
The Hilton Head Public Service District, a water utility on the north end of the island, has suspended shut-offs for the foreseeable future. That PSD, the Broad Creek PSD and the South Island PSD haven’t reported a significant uptick in delinquent accounts this summer.
Turner, however, is still concerned by the rise in water bill help requests sent to nonprofits.
“That’s an indicator in and of itself that families don’t have that $20 extra,” she said. “That’s where we’re at right now.”
