Agenda - 12-01-2008 - Mgr Info - Laserfiche WebLink

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living in the Orange County school district is eligible for consideration, providing they meet either DSS income requirements of 200% of poverty level or below or receive OCIM's approval. The Town of Hillsborough's Water/Sewer Utility Fund provides a portion of the funding for this program. The money comes from interest on customer's deposits and from voluntary customer donations to Hillsborough's Water Assistance Fund. Hillsborough utility staff provide information about the OCIM program to customers who are having trouble paying their water/sewer bill. As mentioned before, Hillsborough is not the sole source of funding for this program. Therefore, the dollar amount of assistance to Hillsborough water/sewer customers is not limited to the funding the Town provides to the program. However, all the money donated by the Town to Samaritan Relief is earmarked for their water/sewer customers. This money is only made available to help Hillsborough customers with their water/sewer bills and if not used during the budget year the balance carries forward to the next year. Staff is currently in discussion with OCIM regarding Efland customer's access to this program. While it is clear that Efland customers who meet the income requirements would be eligible for .aid from the Samaritan Relief program, the burden this would represent to OCIM is unclear. The OCIM administration has a general idea of the needs of the community and a finite supply of funding for this program. The addition of this potential need due to increased sewer rates may limit their ability to help everyone unless they were to receive additional funding. This additional funding could come from a variety of sources. Hillsborough utility staff has indicated that they currently have a surplus in their OCIM account. The Town's utility staff is willing to allow Efland customers to tap into their water/sewer aid fund (pending Town Manager and Water/Sewer Advisory Board approval) at least temporarily. In three years, once the Efland Sewer Fund becomes self-supporting, there may be interest income (e.g. from capital reserve) that could be used to support this program in the amount necessary for its own customer's needs. Until that time, money could be designated from the General Fund to support the OCIM program. If new rates were to be implemented in January, there would be at least a few months to gather data on the amount of aid that is being sought by Efland sewer customers and budget funding support accordingly. The benefit of this program is that it is an existing program with which DSS is already familiar and which OCIM is used to administering. The disadvantages are the same as with the EA program run through DSS, namely the emergency nature of the aid and the six month dispersal window. In addition, if Hillsborough management does not approve granting Efland customers access to Hillsborough water/sewer aid money, the Orange County General Fund would need to make a "seed" contribution to OCIM to get the program started. Rogers Road Water Tap Grant Program In previous BOCC discussions on raising Efland sewer rates, the water-tap grant program used for the Rogers Road area of Chapel Hill has been mentioned. In this program, grants were funded by the Orange County General Fund and made available to citizens who met certain basic eligibility requirements (such as being current on their Orange County taxes) and whose income was less than 80% of the median income (Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines for the Raleigh-Durham- Chapel Hill area) for their size household. According to Tara Fikes, director of Orange County Housing/Community Development, this model for a relief program would not be applicable because it was designed to be a one-time grant program, not ongoing assistance. In addition, DSS staff believes a