MOULTRIE – A town hall meeting was recently held at the R.D. Smith Teen Center to discuss the high utility bills among Moultrie and Doerun residents who get their electricity through the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia.

Members of the community gathered for the meeting, hosted Feb. 25 by Carol Simpson, to speak with city employees about figuring out why the utility bills were high. Their concerns revolved around unexpected spikes in their bills, inconsistencies in billing even when energy usage was low, issues with power shut-off policies, late fees, and residents feeling as if billing wasn’t uniform across neighborhoods.

City Manager Pete Dillard, City of Moultrie Utility Director Marvin Mobley and Community Enhancement Director Stephen Godley were there to address the residents’ concerns. Moultrie City Councilwoman Barbara Jelks and Doerun City Councilman Willie Slaughter Jr. were also in attendance.

Simpson informed those attending the town hall event that they had the ability to elect the Georgia Public Service Commission, which approved all requests for any power bill increase.

A resident of Doerun requested that the average billing data across different neighborhoods be made public to ensure equality. Some believed that residents in Northwest and Southwest Moultrie were paying more than those in other districts.

Residents explained their understanding was that this past winter hit record lows, which affected utility bills, but they asked if there were potential seasonal surcharges that were not being fully disclosed to the public.

A question was posed to the city officials about what the money was being used for when residents were charged fees to have their power restored after a shut-off or for late payments. A definitive answer wasn’t given to the questions posed.

Mobley dismissed claims of hidden surcharges, assuring residents that all customers were being billed at the same rate. He encouraged residents to visit the utility office for their specific billing issues and concerns.

He also went into details, explaining that the base cost of combined water, sewer, electric, and garbage started at $95. There were ways to save energy and become more efficient with energy usage he said.

“You wanted us to be here to help you solve your problems. Is that correct? We can’t solve it all by ourselves. Now I’m not gonna run for office and tell you a lie,” said Dillard.

He said the first thing was that they had to know what the problem was and that meant they needed to have data.

“What we can do, we can give you data. If you come down, we can pull your bill. We can put it on the computer or we can print you out a piece of paper right there. We can show you on a graph what your usage has been for the last three years,” he said.

He also told them that they could show customers how much electricity that they used by day for the last year. He said this was important so that they could see where the usage had jumped up.

“In a room like this, we can’t solve your problem because we don’t have the data for each one of you,” Dillard said.

He said the individual customer could look at the data and see where the bill jumped up and start looking at what happened and work toward a solution. He said, once the data was pulled for an individual customer, then his staff would be able to start to help them figure out what happened so that they could work toward a solution. He encouraged them to come to the office and get their usage information.

According to energystar.gov, LED lightbulbs provide the same brightness as traditional bulbs but use 90% less energy. Unplugging unused devices, not blocking air vents, and keeping the fireplace damper closed, unless a fire is burning, to reduce heat loss are a few ways to reduce energy loss.

Community members could potentially take advantage of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, a federally funded program that provides one-time annual assistance for residents. Additionally, the city payment plan is available for residents to apply for. An emergency assistance program, which is on a case-by-case basis, also helps residents with paying their bills but has a limit of $300.

After the meeting, when asked if she thought the resident’s concerns were resolved at the meeting Simpson said, yes, she thought that the city managers were open and receptive to individual residents coming to the utility department with their bills to discuss and find solutions to their high costs. However, she also said, no, because two questions were left unanswered, even after the residents inquired about them.

“Also, I don’t believe individual customer bills will solve the problem of high utility costs in Northwest Moultrie,” Simpson said.