Detroit Board of Water Commissioners committee meetings, September 2022
Commissioners and DWSD General Counsel Debra Pospiech said the department has not heard of any issues from customers applying to the fixed-rate Lifeline Plan. A commissioner said every applicant has been accepted. Applications are being handled by Wayne Metro Community Action Agency, and this commissioner said the process is monitored by DWSD’s finance department.
“I wish I had a lot of confidence in Wayne Metro, but I don’t.”
The department’s call center received more than 57,000 calls last month, according to a monthly report from Matthew Phillips, DWSD customer service officer. This is up from 49,000 calls in July. Since June, calls were answered within 11 minutes on average.
The department has 24 new hires, including 18 field technicians, according to Patricia Thornhill, its organizational development director. However DWSD Director Gary Brown said they’ve lost many job candidates — 15 last month — who retract their applications while waiting for drug test results. In the meanwhile, Thornhill said the department is considering hiring more employees than it needs to anticipate turnover.
DWSD customer service manager Kimberly Crowell said the department will start calling Lifeline Plan customers if they exceed their monthly usage threshold, as well as customers who will be visited by contractors performing meter upgrades. DWSD will use IBM Watson for these calls.
Hydrate Detroit is still organizing a summit on water affordability with city officials, said the nonprofit’s chief director Meeko Williams.
Commissioners approved a contract with the Utility Workers Union of America. Seven DWSD employees are Utility Workers members.
Table of Contents
Documentation
The Finance, Customer Service and Human Resources/Organizational Development committee meetings were live-blogged on Mastodon and Twitter for Detroit Documenters.
Documents available on Documenters.org, including the meeting agenda and more documentation by Princess B.
The agency’s last meeting on Aug. 17 was documented by Paul Warner and Sonja Stuckey. The next meeting on Sept. 21 was documented by Alex Klaus and Shaheda Jenkins.
Visit the agency’s website for official information.
Related news articles
- “More than 10K Detroiters apply for water program; future funding sources still unclear”
Oct. 20, 2022, Malak Silmi and Nushrat Rahman, Outlier Media - “New Detroit homeowner hit with $5,200 bill for water she didn’t use”
Oct. 5, 2022, Steve Neavling, Detroit Metro Times - “From the Headlines, Sept. 26 – 30”
Sept. 30, 2022, Brian Allnutt, Planet Detroit - “Detroit water department's new affordability program isn't funded long-term”
Sept. 27, 2022; Lynelle Herndon, Noah Kincade and Malak Silmi; Detroit Documenters - “Claims piling up for Detroit’s new low-cost water and sewer line insurance”
Aug. 25, 2022, Malak Silmi, Outlier Media - “Audit: Water department misused credit cards for gifts, hotel stays”
Aug. 22, 2022, Malachi Barrett, BridgeDetroit
Materials
Archived pages
Mastodon posts and the pages for the Finance, Customer Service and Human Resources/Organizational Development committee meetings are archived on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Audio
The actual start of the meeting (1:04 p.m.) can be heard four minutes into the recording.
Images
Screenshots of online meeting. Due to limited resources, image descriptions are provided on request — contact me.
Meta
Page published Dec. 19, 2022.
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All original content in this documentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Share and republish to everyone, freely.