Atlanta市议会委员会支持三个月水费账单调整授权 全会10月19日审议
位于佐治亚州富尔顿县的亚特兰大市，Atlanta市议会市政公用事业委员会10月13日一致通过一项条例草案，拟授权市流域管理专员或其指定人员，在2026年11月1日至2027年1月31日的三个月内，调整单户住宅用户的自来水与污水账单。市议会全体会议定于10月19日下午1时审议该案，委员会的通过只是推荐，并非最终批准。
该条例编号为26-O-1564，由市议员 Dustin Hillis 与 Liliana Bakhtiari 提出。草案提出，调整可涵盖任何时段、任何金额，不设金额上限，条件是专员依既定操作程序酌情处理；但条例并不保证任何用户必然获得减免，个案如何裁量、需要何种证明材料，仍有待操作程序明确。
这项授权与市府的 FLOAT 计划相衔接。FLOAT 全称 Flexible Levels, Options, & Affordable Terms，旨在帮助有财务困难的用户结清欠账、纠正水表或账单问题，并争取在一次沟通中解决争议账单。
背景方面，市审计部门8月6日发布的审计显示，截至2026年4月，全市逾期未缴的水费与污水费余额合计达2.36亿美元，涉及60,168个账户。审计同时提醒，其中包括各类状态与各类物业的账户，并非全部属于此次拟议授权针对的单户住宅账户。审计还重申了早前提出的建议，包括为账单调整设定主管复核门槛、限制「A-bill」调整类别的访问权限；流域管理部门表示正在处理先前建议，但落实进度尚未报告。（GSM 据 Atlanta 市议会委员会会议记录与市审计报告报道）
Atlanta Council Panel Backs Three-Month Water Bill Adjustment Authority Ahead of Oct. 19 Vote
Atlanta is a city in Fulton County, Georgia. A committee of the Atlanta City Council voted unanimously on October 13 to advance an ordinance that would give the city's watershed commissioner, or a designee, authority to adjust single-family residential water and sewer accounts from November 1, 2026, through January 31, 2027. The full Council is listed to consider the measure on October 19 at 1 p.m.; the committee action is a recommendation, not final approval.
Ordinance 26-O-1564, sponsored by Councilmembers Dustin Hillis and Liliana Bakhtiari, would allow adjustments for any period of time and in any amount, subject to the commissioner's discretion and established operating procedures. The proposal sets no dollar ceiling, but it creates no automatic entitlement to forgiveness, and the ordinance does not spell out what evidence customers would need or how individual adjustment amounts would be calculated.
The authority is tied to the city's Flexible Levels, Options, & Affordable Terms initiative, known as FLOAT, which is described as helping customers bring accounts current, offering resources to customers facing financial challenges, and allowing field-service requests to correct meter or billing problems.
An August 6 city audit put the broader stakes in context: auditors counted $236 million in delinquent water and sewer balances across 60,168 accounts as of April 2026. The audit covered all account statuses and property classes, not only the single-family residential accounts covered by the proposed authority. It also reiterated an earlier recommendation for supervisory-review thresholds and restricted access for a billing-adjustment category called A-bill; the Department of Watershed Management told auditors it was addressing earlier recommendations, although implementation progress had not yet been reported. (GSM, based on Atlanta City Council committee records and the city audit)
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图片来源：图：Atlanta 市政厅。图片来源：Warren LeMay，Wikimedia Commons，CC0。Photo: Atlanta City Hall. Image: Warren LeMay, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
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