Number of Florence water and sewer customers mistakenly billed from CARE program lower than expected

FLORENCE, S.C. (WBTW) — The number of Florence water and sewer customers mistakenly billed despite opting out of a program that allows the city to round up monthly water bills to the nearest whole dollar is lower than originally expected, the city said Wednesday.

The city said on Tuesday that nearly 7,800 residents were mistakenly enrolled in the “Coins that Add Relief and Enable” program, also known as CARE, even though they previously opted out of the program. The estimated customers impacted is now less than 4,000 at 3,952.

When estimating the total number of accounts impacted, the city included accounts that were “vacant,” or inactive. The total number of refunds is estimated to be $1,659.84.

“City of Florence staff apologizes for this error and for any inconvenience this has created for our customers,” the city said on Tuesday. “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

Customer accounts will be credited with the amount their account was rounded, which could technically be any amount from 1-99 cents, a city official said.

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Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here.

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