Macon Water Authority subsidiary provides money to help with bills

People who need help paying a water bill can now look to the Macon-Bibb Economic Opportunity Council Inc. and Bibb County Department of Family and Children Services for assistance.

The Macon Water Alliance — a nonprofit subsidiary of the Macon Water Authority — presented a check to both entities at a regular monthly meeting Thursday following months of discussion about its plan to do so.

The money — $20,000 to the EOC and $7,000 to DFCS — comes with a requirement for both entities to send a report to the alliance quarterly detailing the total number of customers helped, amount paid on behalf of each customer, the total spending and remaining balance. 

“The alliance wants to understand the need in the community for these services,” District 4 Macon Water Authority and Macon Water Alliance board member Frank Patterson Jr. said.

The Macon Water Alliance was created in 2014 as a mechanism for the government entity to be able to make charitable contributions. Employees and board members can opt to donate a portion of their paychecks to the nonprofit alliance, and customers have an option to do so on their monthly bills.

During a discussion at a meeting last June, some on the board voiced concerns about the Alliance’s donations to nonprofits such as The Tubman Museum’s jazz fundraiser, the annual downtown Christmas lights display and the Cherry Blossom Festival. The alliance’s stated mission is to “fund, maintain, operate and provide environmental enhancement, education and water resource-focused assistance organization to the residents of Middle Georgia.”

The Macon Water Authority board also met Thursday and discussions — both during the meeting and before it — suggest a large industrial customer might be looking to relocate to Macon. 

The board heard a report from its lawyer, Jay Strickland, on whether it has the ability to deny or restrict service to specific industrial customers. The short answer — no, not unless the industrial customer’s proposal would impact the authority’s ability to provide adequate water and sewer services to other customers. 

“Y’all are tasked with ensuring there’s an adequate water supply for customers,” Strickland said. “If a particular demand of a potential customer is going to overload or impact the system such that there is not adequate water supply to the remaining parts of the system, then we have a right to say, ‘no.’” 

Board member Elaine Lucas raised concerns about transparency related to the process of approving large-scale industrial customers. The authority has contracts with several industrial customers that allow them to pay rates for water and sewer that are far below what residential customers pay.

Board member Dwight Jones and Chair Gary Bechtel also serve on the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority board.

Jones said there is a process for approving industrial and commercial customers and “some of it is statutory.”

“When we talk about large projects, unfortunately they are rare. The last one we had was Irving,” Jones said of the tissue manufacturer that moved its plant to Macon in 2017. “When these prospective clients are going to approach the industrial authority, confidentiality is paramount. It’s not a matter of transparency. …. They’re not going to have their business widely known.” 

Jones also noted members of the industrial authority have to sign nondisclosure agreements because “these clients don’t want the information public” until they’ve informed their boards and employees.

The water authority and the industrial authority are each presented with a company’s proposed usage in closed-door meetings, Jones said.

“Then, once it’s approved by those two bodies, they work through zoning,” Jones said. “Zoning is the final piece of the puzzle, then they go public. They don’t want it [out] before.”

Interim CEO Michele Wanna said the MWA receives the project proposals under a code name and runs models on the customer’s planned usage to see how adding that customer might impact the water and sewer systems.

“We do all kind of studies before we say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” Wanna said, adding the authority studies the quality of a company’s wastewater because MWA is responsible for cleaning it.  It’s a good study to go through and that’s what we do.” 

Despite a report on personnel recruitment and retention, the board’s plan for finding a permanent replacement for the late CEO Ron Shipman was not mentioned. Shipman died unexpectedly on Feb. 6, prompting the board to appoint Wanna as the interim CEO. 

Black bows in memoriam of Shipman remain affixed beside doors at the customer entrance to the building on Second Street.

Leadership at MWA is in flux as three of its seven board seats face challengers in the election slated for May 19.