STATE OF CALIFORNIA SB998

The number of residential water service accounts disconnected due to the inability to pay is 435.

Reporting Period was January 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023.

WATER SERVICE APPEAL FORM

Shut-Off Payment Plan – Hardship
Alternative payment schedules available to qualifying low-income residential customers.

To qualify you must meet ALL of the following conditions and provide proper documentation:

  1. Certified by primary care provider that discontinuation of water service would be (i) life threatening , or (ii) pose a serious threat to the health and safety of a resident.
  2. Certify that your household annual income is less than 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)

Or

Certify enrollment in one of the following to demonstrate you are financially unable to pay:

  • CalWORKS
  • CalFresh (Food Stamps)
  • General Assistance (GA/GR)
  • Medi-Cal (Medicaid)
  • Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
  • State Supplementary Payment Program (SSP)
  • California Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)

3. Willing to enter into an alternative payment schedule/plan with provisions.

 

Upon certification, our team will provide payment options provided the repayment on any remaining outstanding balance occurs within 12 months of the establishment of the payment plan.

Failure to comply with the terms of the payment plan for more than sixty days may result in service fees, and discontinuance of residential water service.

LOW INCOME HOUSEHOLD WATER ASSISTANCE PROGRAM (LIHWAP) 

The new federal Low Income Household Water Assistance Program (LIHWAP) provides financial assistance to low-income Californians to help manage their residential water utility costs. Established by Congress in December 2020, this federally f​unded program helps low-income households pay down their outstanding residential water or wastewater bills. California has been allocated $116 million in one​-time funding to provide LIHWAP assistance. ​ 

The Department of Community Services and Development (CSD) is the designated administering agency for LIHWAP in Ca​​lifornia. Through LIHWAP, CSD works with a network of community-based local service providers to help low-income households pay down their outstanding residential ​water and wastewater utility bills.​ 

For more information about how LIHWAP can help your household pay down your past due water or wastewater bills and how to apply visit LIHWAP Find Assistance  

Pursuant to the Public Records Act (Government Code Section 6250, et seq.), a person may request to review and/or receive a copy of any public record unless it is clearly exempt under applicable laws, or the public interest served by not making the record public clearly outweighs the public interest served by disclosure of the record.  Requests must reasonably describe identifiable records.  The Ventura County Public Works Agency Water and Sanitation Department (the “Department”) is not required to create a new record or list from an existing record.

After receiving a request for water and sewer records, the Department will notify the requester within 10 calendar days if it has disclosable records in its possession or whether it will need an additional 14 days to make such determination.  Requests are reviewed between 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on Monday through Friday, excluding holidays.  The Department’s response will depend on the scope of the request and the Department’s need to search and review records.

Payment for Production of Records: If you request physical hard copies of records, you will be charged the actual cost of making a hard copy which will usually be at the rate of $0.20 per page, or a statutory fee if applicable.  For records requiring computer programming/services in order to extract data from a computer database, you will be charged for the District’s staff time necessary to produce the records.  Physical hard copies of records will not be copied and produced until payment has been received by the Department.  If you request records in electronic form and the requested records are stored by the Department in electronic form, the Department will provide the records to you at no charge in the electronic format (such as PDF) in which the records are being stored by the Department.