DEP Seeks Rate Hike As Institutions & Co-Ops Owe Millions
Call it Law and Water.
While the city Department of Environmental Protection turned off the water at nearly 100 single-family homes earlier this month, the agency has left the water running at dozens of Bronx institutions and co-op buildings that owe millions in unpaid bills.
To make matters worse, many of those institutions say they struggle to pay the bills because the DEP is charging them for years of misread meters and other billing mistakes.
The chaotic billing situation exists even as the DEP seeks a 14.5% water bill hike.
City Council opponents of the hike fume it would not be necessary if the DEP collected the $600 million owed by 15% of its customers.
The DEP says it did not have the ability to recover the money until last December, when Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council gave it authority to impose property liens on deadbeats.
In early April, the DEP announced it was shutting the water off at 93 homes across the city that owed between $1,342 and $2,330 - a total that amounted to no more than $220,000.
Meanwhile, according to a list of delinquent payers the DEP released after receiving it via a Freedom of Information Act request, the top 10 debtors in the Bronx owe $6 million - most of them exempt from the lien sale.
They include St. Vincent De Paul, a nursing home which owes $844,465; Leland Gardens, a condo building on Leland Ave. which owes $961,642, and a housing development fund co-op building at 2089 Arthur Ave. which is $870,813 in arrears.
Many of the largest unpaid Bronx bills are from nursing homes that say they are strapped for cash and dependent on government funds, including St. Vincent de Paul, Workmen’s Circle MultiCare Center and the Hebrew Home for the Aged.
Soloman Rutenberg, Workmen’s Circle’s executive director, said the home was hit with a $400,000 bill after the DEP found it had been misreading the home’s meter for several years. Read more..
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