MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2021 Regular Session
To: Municipalities
By: Representatives Bell (65th), Brown (70th), Crudup, Yates, Stamps, Gibbs (72nd), Holloway
AN ACT TO ALLOW CERTAIN MUNICIPALITIES TO ADOPT RULES AND PROCEDURES AUTHORIZING ACCOUNTING SYSTEM ACCOMMODATION OF CERTAIN UNCOLLECTIBLE INDEBTEDNESS OWED BY A CUSTOMER FOR WATER AND SEWER SERVICES; TO AMEND SECTIONS 31-19-27 AND 31-19-29, MISSISSIPPI CODE OF 1972, DEALING WITH DOUBTFUL CLAIMS; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. (1) A municipality having a population of one hundred fifty thousand (150,000) as of the most recent decennial census or more may institute a program to address certain disputed or delinquent water and sewer customer accounts. The municipality must adopt rules and procedures to implement the program if instituted. Such rules may consider the customer's ability to pay the full amount of the disputed or delinquent claim. In order for the program to take effect, the mayor of the municipality, the Municipal Director of Public Works, and Executive Director of the the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff shall mutually approve such rules and procedures by July 1, 2021. The rules and procedures shall include, but not be limited to, an itemized summary of the amount and number of all accounts judged to be disputed or delinquent. The municipality's authority to compromise doubtful claims is limited to the following cases:
(a) (i) Instances of error on the part of the municipality such as equipment failure, process failure or billing failure;
(ii) Instances of error on the part of the municipality due to unforeseen circumstance such as damage, extreme weather-related event, declared disaster or emergency, or mandatory evacuation, but only to the extent the customer did not receive the benefit of the water or sewer service; and
(b) Instances where the customer's ability to pay or the amount of the customer's overdue balance for water and sewer service can be reasonably adjudged to be uncollectible, in which case the municipality may utilize an installment payment agreement to allow the customer additional time to pay a prescribed portion of the outstanding balance, and as part of the installment payment plan, to offer the utilization by the municipality of accounting procedures to move the remaining balance as an uncollectible debt to a special municipal accounting category of uncollectible or inactive accounts as outlined in the program rules if the customer fulfills all terms of the installment plan. The prescribed portion must require some payment by the customer. The program must provide that the accounting adjustments under this paragraph (b) do not result in forgiveness of uncollectible debts.
(2) The municipality may set program parameters to take into account the principle of collateral estoppel as to its own prior service, billing or collection actions.
(3) Any utility that participates in the program shall provide by January 1, 2022, to the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Mississippi Public Utilities Staff a report that details the utility's revenue collection, the number of accounts that have been adjudged uncollectable, the number of accounts that are participating in the installment payment plans, the number of accounts that are overdue, and the effect of the program on the utility's revenue collection. Such report shall also include the utility's plan to address any remaining disputed or delinquent claims that have not been resolved, to provide fair and accurate bills to all of its customers, and to reduce equipment failure, process failure, and billing failures in the future.
(4) For the purpose of this section, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff may enter into professional services contracts to ensure the success of the program. The municipally-owned utility shall reimburse the Mississippi Public Utilities Staff for such contracts, not to exceed Two Hundred Thousand Dollars ($200,000.00) over the duration of the program.
(5) This section shall stand repealed on July 1, 2022.
SECTION 2. Section 31-19-27, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
31-19-27. A doubtful claim
of the state, or of the county, city, town, village, or levee board is one for
which judgment has been rendered and for the collection of which the ordinary
process of law has been ineffectual; debts due by drainage districts or other
taxing districts or sinking funds to counties under the Rehabilitation Act of
1928, being Chapter 88 * * *, Laws of 1928, and Chapter 16 of the Acts of the Special
Session of 1931; those debts due counties by drainage districts, which the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to refinance; those
debts due a municipal utility system as authorized under Section 1 of this act;
debts due for sixteenth section township school fund loans made to churches,
where the board of supervisors finds that the value of the security given
therefor is insufficient or inadequate to pay or satisfy the principal and
interest of said loan, and when the church repays the principal of said loan;
and debts due by counties and townships to drainage districts for drainage
district assessments or taxes levied and assessed upon sixteenth section lands.
SECTION 3. Section 31-19-29, Mississippi Code of 1972, is amended as follows:
31-19-29. The Governor, on
the advice of the Attorney General or * * * the
Commissioner of Revenue at the State Department of Revenue, may, upon
application of the defendant or debtor proposing a compromise, settle and
compromise any doubtful claim of the state, or of any county, city, town, or
village, or of any levee board against such defendant or debtor, upon such
terms as he may deem proper, the board of supervisors in the case of a county,
and the municipal authorities in the case of a city, town or village, and the
levee board in the case of a claim of a levee board, concurring therein. The
Governor, upon application of a drainage district having obligations
outstanding to a county under the provisions of Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, and
Chapter 16, Laws of the Extraordinary Session of 1931, or obligations which the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to refinance, may
settle and compromise any claim, debt or obligation that said drainage district
may owe any county in the State of Mississippi for money loaned said district
under the provisions of said Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, or any other claim, debt
or obligation that said drainage district may owe the county which the
Reconstruction Finance Corporation has heretofore refused to finance, if the
board of supervisors of said county concurs in the application of the drainage
district. A municipality may compromise a debt owed for water and sewer
service only as provided in Section 1 of this act. The Governor, upon
application by the board of supervisors for any taxing districts of said county
or sinking funds of said county under the control and supervision of said board
of supervisors having obligations outstanding and due to said county under the
provisions of Chapter 88, Laws of 1928, and Chapter 16, Laws of the
Extraordinary Session of 1931, may settle and compromise any claim, debt, or
obligation that said taxing districts or sinking funds may owe said county for
money loaned said taxing districts or sinking funds under the provisions of
said Chapter 88, Laws of 1928; and provided that the Governor, on the advice of
the Attorney General, and upon application of a church owing a sixteenth
section township school fund loan, may settle and compromise such debt or
obligation if the board of supervisors of the said county concurs in the
application of the said church. The Governor may, on the advice of the
Attorney General, in like manner compromise and settle a claim of a drainage
district for unpaid assessments or taxes upon sixteenth section lands upon
application of the board of supervisors wherein such sixteenth section is
situated, if the commissioners of the drainage district concur therein.
SECTION 4. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.