Citizens Energy Group’s Key Messages for 2019 support the theme of the recent State of the Trust address: Inspired to Create Value. As you interact with customers, please use these key messages and supporting statements.
Summary Message: Citizens Energy Group is your hometown utility focused on enhancing the safety, quality and affordability of our services. Our system improvements, such as the DigIndy Tunnel System, are creating a more livable and sustainable community. We operate utilities only for your benefit and the long-term economic health of Central Indiana.
Key Messages:
- We are raising efficiency to control costs. Process improvement is driving efficiency and holding down costs. Our value engineering process has reduced the original cost of the DigIndy Tunnel System and associated investments by more than $400 million.
- We are making vital system investments. The first 10-mile section of DigIndy has already prevented more than half a billion gallons of sewer overflows from reaching area streams each year. Citizens has requested a three-phase increase in wastewater rates starting in summer 2019 to fund sewer rehabilitation and federally mandated work on the DigIndy Tunnel System and related projects. Our water system improvements are improving water quality, reducing water lost from main breaks and ensuring vital supplies for economic development. Continued natural gas and thermal system investments are keeping both utilities among the safest and best maintained in the nation.
- We are helping customers better manage their utility bills. We are working with community partners to assist low-income customers having difficulty paying their utility bills. Citizens is seeking permission to create a Low-Income Customer Assistance Program that would provide a 10, 18 or 25 percent discount on wastewater bills for customers who qualify for a similar discount program now provided to our natural gas customers. At the same time, we are proposing to create a Wastewater Infrastructure Fund to help low-income customers with investments that can reduce their water bills, such as low-flow water appliances. We also are educating customers about how they can reduce their utility bills through easy water and energy conservation measures such as limiting lawn irrigation and turning down their thermostat. In addition, we are encouraging customers to enroll in Citizens Budget Plan to spread out the costs of winter heating and summer lawn watering throughout the year.
- We are enhancing customer service. We are offering new self-service options that allow you to manage your account on your terms while helping reduce wait times for customers who contact our call center. New self-service options include 120 new remote payment sites, and convenient online options, such as paperless billing and digital alerts for billing and service appointments.
- We are supporting our community. We are improving quality of life in Indianapolis through philanthropy and employee volunteerism. Each year hundreds of Citizens employees volunteer for non-profit organizations across the Indianapolis area. Our biggest volunteer event is our annual Sharing the Dream project which has made more than $3 million in improvements to 10 Indy Parks facilities over the past decade in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
