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.CITY OF SOUTH BEND OFFICE OF THE CLERK Dr. Boyles went on, We really found that we wouldn't need to re-create the wheel. It is a really great model. So, we started to move down that path. What we did was look around and tried to find out who in our community were already doing energy assistance programs. It turns out REAL Services do a lot of great things in our community. They have over twenty(20)programs, I think, but they really focus on agencies that focus on aging, community action agencies, and then Alzheimer's services. Energy assistance falls under that community action agency portion. So, we engaged with them to better understand what the need is in our community. So, similar to what was happening in Citizen's in Indianapolis, the third (3rd) party they are working with in United Way, they have the data right there in which they knew who the customers were and how many there were that were already using energy assistance. REAL Services is the keeper of that data in our area. So,we began engaging with them and attempt to review their data and learn a little more about who is receiving EAP. We hope to establish a partnership with them to work through this program. We had a great experience and had multiple meetings with them, and we did get data from them. That helped show us what things look like in South Bend. We have 39,000 households in South Bend. We know that from the data from REAL Services, anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 households take advantage of the EAP every heating season. This past year, it was around eleven- point-eight-percent(11.8%). What that means is that eleven-point-eight-percent(11.8%)of South Bend households are actually at or below sixty percent (60%) of the State's median household income. For a family of four(4), that is around $45,000 per year. She continued, We also found out that of those participants of the EAP, seventy-eight-point-four- percent (78.4%) were renters. So, there is a very high renter participation. Then, we were able to dive a little deeper into the data because they are actually breaking their data down,similar to what we saw in the Citizen's case where they were creating the tiers and giving different discounts based on level of need. Energy assistance with REAL Services, they're already doing that as well. So, they're breaking that down. If you're at one hundred percent (100%) with a sixty percent (60%) median household income, or seventy-five percent (75%), or fifty percent (50%), that kind of shows you (referencing the presentation)that you've got a high number of participants in that one hundred percent(100%)range.Then there is a smaller number and then another pretty high number of participants that are at fifty percent (50%) or less of the sixty percent (60%) State median household income. It's pretty consistent. Thirty percent (30%) of our residents are below fifty percent (50%) of sixty percent (60%) MHI. We captured the raw data and IT assisted us. One (1) of the business analysts assisted us in some of the analysis and there are a lot of incomes reported as zero (0) for households. It's not personalized information,just numbers. That is the unfortunate data. She went on, So,what we did with that was we made our first(1st)attempt to look at how we could make an impact given that the average bill for sewer every month is around forty-five dollars($45). We look at what would happen if we did a surcharge and we charged every customer one dollar and seventy-five cents($1.75). What kind of impact could we make,given the numbers we looked at, if we were to apply a credit for our eligible low-income customers? So, we did some variations as the Committee as we looked together. We looked at what we could pay across as a flat credit and we really felt that some sort of a break-down with the tiers just made more sense. Now, you're able to really see, almost as a two (2) to one (1)ratio, of those who are most in need. They would receive almost twice the credit. The reality of this is that this would be a monthly surcharge to all customers. So, what we did was we tried to align it so that if you are in the eligibility for income, EXCELLENCE ACCOUNTABILITY INNOVATION I INCLUSION EMPOWERMENT 455 County-City Building 227 W.Jefferson Bvld South Bend,Indiana 46601 p 574.235.9221 f574.235.9173 TTD 574.235.5567 www.southbendin.gov 3