The Municipal Utility District Act authorizes municipal utility districts to provide light, heat, water, and power within their jurisdictions. Existing law generally prohibits a municipal utility district from terminating residential service because of a delinquent account unless the district first provides the customer with notice of the delinquency and impending termination and complies with specified notice and opportunity-to-cure requirements.
AB 1945 authorizes municipal utility districts to allow customers to elect to receive required delinquency notices electronically. AB 1945 also authorizes districts furnishing service to fewer than 100,000 customers to offer residential customers a prepay option for electrical service, subject to specified consumer protections. Among other requirements, customers must affirmatively opt into the program with informed written consent; districts must provide information concerning how to return to standard billing and any differences in consumer protections; customers must have access to usage and account-balance information; and districts must provide automated low-balance alerts before suspending service. Districts must also provide eligible customers an opportunity to participate in an arrearage payment plan before the prepay option takes effect and adopt policies designed to minimize service disruptions for specified vulnerable customers.
Customers participating in a qualifying prepay option are not subject to the ordinary statutory delinquency-notice requirements before electrical service is terminated for nonpayment. Municipal utility districts choosing to establish a prepay program will therefore need to adopt and administer the program in accordance with the statutory consumer-protection requirements.
AB 1945 amends Section 12823.1 of, and adds Section 12823.2 to, the Public Utilities Code.
