The Lawrence City Commission on Tuesday gave a nod of approval to a program that will allow residents to donate to a utility assistance program to help others who can’t pay their bills. The program will be administered by Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, which was the only group to respond to a city request for proposals, for $250 per application that gets approved by the city. The city already has a special rate for residents ages 60 and up who earn 110% of the federal poverty level or less, but this program will expand assistance to other customers with low incomes. The per-application cost to the city — which would come from the general fund rather than from the pool of donations, according to Kristy Webb, utility billing manager — is roughly equivalent to two or three months’ worth of the average household’s city utility bills, which include water, sewer, stormwater and solid waste and recycling.
Source: The Lawrence Times
