Shreveport Has More than $2.5M in Delinquent Water Bills

SHREVEPORT, LA - If you let your water bill go for a couple of months, your water would probably get turned off. That is pretty standard. But KEEL News has found that dozens of businesses in Shreveport have outstanding water bills going back for years.

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We requested a list of all delinquent accounts that have a balance of more than $10,000. We got that list and it includes more than 50 accounts. Most of these accounts are commercial. These bills total more than $2.5 million dollars. And these are just the bills in excess of $10,000 dollars. We don't know the total amount in arrears owed to the city.

Councilwoman Ursula Bowman has called for a full audit of the water department and the City Council's Internal Audit Department is in the middle of conducting that audit now.

We asked Mayor Tom Arceneaux about these outstanding bills and he tells us

Most of these are commercial accounts and they should have been treated the same way that residents are. We are looking into why that didn't occur.

The Mayor says a lot of this accumulated during Covid. "Some of these also might be due to some leaks that we are investigating." Arceneaux says "we are going to do our very best to collect this money or make arrangements to begin payments or the water will be cut off."

Arceneaux also says:

During Covid, the City of Shreveport stopped turning matters over to collection agencies, but that has now been reversed. This is very important to the people of Shreveport. This is something we should have been doing and now we're working on doing it.

The Mayor also says he is working on policy changes for how you get a master meter. These might require a larger deposit as well as possible personal guarantees.

The Mayor has this message to folks who are in arrears:

"Pay up, make arrangements to pay or be prepared to be without water."