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Delta Utilities address residents concerns over spike in bills
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BATON ROUGE - Last week, some Delta Utilities customers told WBRZ their utility bills tripled over the previous month.
"First bill, about 15 bucks, and up until November, between 15 and 30 dollars. December magically, I turn my heater on, and I get a bill for almost $430," Delta Utilities Customer Jerremy Wilson said.
Members of the East Baton Rouge Metro Council and Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis hosted a Delta Utilities Town Hall meeting Tuesday night, in hopes of providing residents with answers about the increase they are seeing in their natural gas bills and resources to help with bill payment.
"We have a lot of our elderly people, who are on fixed incomes, and they have seen their utility bill skyrocket; we can't have that, we can't. They're living on a fixed income, they can't afford to pay a $125, $130 utility bill," East Baton Rouge Metro Councilmember Twahna P. Harris said.
Representatives from Delta Utilities say residents may be seeing higher bills because of the weather, claiming the 2025 fall and winter seasons were 41 percent colder than the same time period the previous year.
Delta Utilities also claims rising gas costs may play a factor, but many residents are not convinced that's the case.
"Everybody, take out your phone. Look at your phone at what the current prices for natural gas are, and is there a shortage of natural gas in Louisiana? Heck no, we are the leaders of natural gas in the country, Louisiana," one resident said during the meeting.
Residents were able to speak directly with customer service representatives about their bills during the meeting, something many say is a challenge to do on a regular basis.
"I just need the bills to be accurate and reflect the usage, so that we can pay and stop all these unnecessary absorbent fees. We have customer fee, customer usage fee, customer reading the bill fee, a customer replenishment fee, all of these unnecessary fees, and they have great definitions for them, but are they legit, and are they fair?" Delta Utilities Customer Craig Bilbrew said.
Delta Utilities did inform residents of payment assistance programs that can help with tackling the bills, like levelized billing, which spreads costs evenly throughout the year, or the federally funded low-income housing assistance program.
"I'm working, and I'm not quite paycheck to paycheck, but shoot, I have a budget, and to get a bill like that, it just doesn't make any sense," Wilson said.
Metro Council member Cleve Dunn assured residents that this will not be the last town hall meeting to address the Delta Utilities bill concerns. He says they plan to have more in the future.
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