Florence water and sewer customers mistakenly billed despite opting out of CARE program
FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW) — Nearly 7,800 Florence residents were mistakenly enrolled into a program that allows the city to round up monthly water bills to the nearest whole dollar to help prevent shut-offs for those who are unable to pay their bills, officials said.
The mistake affecting the June billing cycle led to the residents being enrolled in the Coins that Add Relief and Enable” program, also known as CARE, even though they previously opted out out of the program, the city said.
“City of Florence staff apologizes for this error and for any inconvenience this has created for our customers,” the city said. “We are in the process now of running a report to identify the accounts that have been impacted and will begin manually issuing account credits once this information is received.”
The city announced the program in April, saying that all water and sewer customers inside and outside city limits would be automatically enrolled but that there would be an option to opt out. The program went into effect on May. 1
The funds collected through the program go into a separate account to help prevent shut-offs. The most any one customer will pay annually is $11.88.
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Taylor Ford is a digital journalist for News13. She joined the News13 team in January 2023. Taylor is a Florence native and covers the Pee Dee out of News13’s Florence Bureau. Read more of Taylor’s work here.
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