The Wisconsin Public Service Commission has accepted utilities’ plans for managing the amount of money customers owe on unpaid utility bills as many people have fallen behind due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Last year, the PSC issued an order in March that barred utilities from disconnecting service due to nonpayment during the COVID-19 crisis. Regulators decided to end the year-long moratorium on utility shutoffs beginning April 15, 2021.

As of February, more than 93,000 residential customers met the threshold for disconnection due to unpaid bills along with roughly 4,800 business customers. By the end of last year, utilities had seen customers’ past-due balances grow to at least $309 million — an increase of fifty-eight percent from the year before.

The Citizens Utility Board said in comments to the commission that it was “somewhat heartened” to see that many utilities are offering more flexibility to customers seeking to pay off their balances. “In particular, changes that decrease the initial installment payment, lower the monthly payment amount required, and/or provide a payment period of 12 months or greater will dramatically increase the likelihood that customers with unpaid balances will be able to navigate a path back to good standing with their utilities,” wrote Corey Singletary, a utility analyst for CUB.

However, the consumer advocacy group said it was disappointed that municipal utilities seemed to be focusing efforts on recovering past-due bills through customers’ property taxes. The board added that many utilities have been requiring high down payments of up to 50 percent of those balances in repayment plans.

Some of the state’s five largest investor-owned utilities have indicated they plan to resume disconnections of residential customers as a last resort to recover unpaid bills, including We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service. Xcel Energy has said the utility plans to recover costs through a future rate case.