Tiered Assistance Program (TAP) Debt Forgiveness

Debt Forgiveness helps customers. Customers enrolled in TAP eliminate a portion of the debt on their accounts every time they pay a water bill. After paying 24 reduced bills, all eligible debt is cleared.

Eligible debt

There are two kinds of debt that can grow on your water account: Principal and Penalty.

Principal refers to unpaid water bills.
Penalties are charges added when you haven’t paid a bill in full on time.

Debt Forgiveness applies to principal and penalties on your water account. It applies to debt on your account from before your first enrollment in TAP (known as “pre-TAP debt”).

Different timing for different types of debt

Every time you pay a TAP bill, 1/24^th of your principal debt is forgiven.

After you make 24 full TAP payments, your entire principal debt will be forgiven.

In addition, after your 24^th full TAP payment, your entire penalty debt will be forgiven as one lump credit to your account.

For this reason, sometimes your counters (see below) will show different numbers.

Tracking your progress toward Debt Forgiveness

If you’re enrolled in TAP, the second page of your bill has a “TAP History” box.

You’ll see two numbers: your Earned penalty forgiveness counter and your Earned principal forgiveness counter.

When your penalty counter reaches 24, you will see a credit for your full penalty amount.

The principal counter shows how many TAP bills you have paid in full. Each time you make a full TAP payment, the counter’s number will increase by one and a portion of your principal will be forgiven.

Partial Payments

Every time you pay the full amount of a TAP bill, the forgiveness counter increases by one. We will accept multiple installments to cover the cost of a full bill, but a partial installment will only increase the counter when you reach the full amount of a bill.