From faulty meters to $70K in charges, billing struggles persist for JXN Water three years after federal takeover
JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) — Richard Laswell just wants a clean slate.
Since September, the North Jackson resident’s water has been cut off twice, and he’s received multiple bills for past due amounts he can’t pay… and doesn’t believe he owes.
Laswell spoke to 3 On Your Side days before his service was cut the second time, unsure of what he was going to do once that disconnect happened.
“I’ve made contingency plans with bottles of water, but I don’t know what I’m going to do… once they’re empty,” he said. “Do I go begging to my neighbors? ‘Can you run a hose over to my house… so I can flush my toilet?’”
“How does that make a person feel? I mean, it’s just insane.”
Laswell is one of dozens of residents who have reached out to 3 On Your Side in recent weeks as JXN Water has ramped up collection efforts.
Concerns have ranged from inaccurate billing and overly high bills to rude customer service. Customers also say they’ve been cut off without notice and without receiving regular statements.
For Laswell, the shut-off has been a healthcare nightmare. Laswell has a medical condition that requires him to use a catheter.
“I have to make sure that the area is clean and antiseptic, or I will get an infection,” he said. “And if I get an infection, I’m going to end up in the hospital.”
Byram resident Kim Hinton’s taps were turned off on October 2 after she amassed a bill for more than $28,000.
“I came home early from work to go to a funeral, and my water was off. I had enough time to call JXN Water and ask them what the problem was… And they said I owed over $28,000,” she said. “I said, ‘How is that possible?’ She says, ‘You have a leak.’”
Hinton says she hadn’t received a bill in years and was never notified about a leak — or the past due amount.
Despite not receiving a monthly bill, she says she paid semi-regularly at a payment center at a drug store in Byram.
As for the leak, plumbers later determined there wasn’t one, and her meter was malfunctioning.
Services were ultimately restored on October 21, but only after she enlisted the help of State Rep. Fabian Nelson.
Nelson says he’s received complaints from nearly a dozen constituents, including a single mother with a $70,000 water bill.
That customer’s water was also turned off, and now she’s relying on family to help out.
“She wanted a plumber to come and look at it to see if she actually had a leak. They told her that in order to get the lock removed, it would be $25,000,” he said.
“You can’t just sit and turn people’s water off and tell them ‘You owe us $25,000’… You have to have some empathy when you’re talking to customers… It’s a very disheartening situation.”
Interim Third-Party Manager Ted Henifin began ramping up shutoffs in September, amid the utility’s cash flow crisis.
He dismissed concerns from some of the residents we had spoken to during our interview, telling us it was a small sample size and not a true representation of most JXN Water customers.
“We bill roughly 60,000 accounts a month. So, if you just do the percentages, and say we got 99.9% of them perfect, that’s still like 60 that go south,” he said.
“Sixty is still a big number… If 60 different people came to City Council and filled the chambers up, all with billing issues, the city would think, ‘Oh gosh, the world’s coming to an end.’ If 60 people… showed up at WLBT, you’d think, ‘There’s a revolution going on.’ But it’s 60 out of 60,000 people.”
Henifin took over Jackson’s water and water billing systems in November 2022. JXN Water assumed “full responsibility” for collections in October 2023.
Since then, the third-party manager has struggled with collections, surpassing $8 million in monthly revenue for the first time in recent months.
Even so, the utility is not bringing in enough to support operations.
This spring, Henifin proposed a second water rate increase to help boost revenue. However, the measure was voted down by the city council and put on hold by U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate.
On Friday, Henifin announced in his third quarterly report to the court that he was moving forward with the rate increase, saying he had the full authority to do so under the Interim Stipulated Order.
“JXN Water has unmet and met wastewater needs that threaten public health and the environment. Without additional rate capacity to take on new debt, these issues will remain unaddressed,” he wrote.
“Critical repairs to the Savanna Street and Trahon Wastewater Treatment Plants, as well as the 99 pump stations throughout the sewer collection system, are needed as soon as possible. Additionally, two ongoing illegal and public health-threatening sanitary sewer overflows require significant capital funding to resolve that JXN Water does not have.”
Judge Wingate called a special hearing for Wednesday in response to Henifin’s announcement, writing in a November 1 order that he did not have the endorsement of the mayor, city council, or court.
“Indeed, this court is on record as stating that before any water rate increase should be submitted, JXN Water should endeavor to exhaust all other options.”
Wingate and the council have rejected the increase, in part, due to JXN Water’s roughly 71 percent collection rate.
Facing a continued “cash flow crisis,” Henifin ramped up shutoffs, including at the city’s multiple apartment complexes — some of JXN Water’s biggest users.
Water was disconnected at Blossom Apartments in South Jackson in July, after the owner failed to pay a more than $400,000 bill.
Henifin argued owner Tony Little had not paid for years and failed to bring his account current even after setting up two payment plans.
[READ: ‘He has to pay his bill’: Water shut off at Blossom Apartments]
For his part, Little claimed his meter was wrong, and Henifin refused to check it.
He pointed to an October 2024 bill showing tenants at the Woodbine Street complex used 759,869 gallons in one month, or approximately 14,612 gallons of water per unit.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the average family of four uses between 320 and 400 gallons a day, or between 9,900 and 12,400 gallons a month.
Little argued that there was no way his property could be using that much water, because several units at the time were unoccupied due to a mudslide at the property. Others only housed one or two tenants.
Correspondence obtained by WLBT shows Little asked Henifin to check the meter in July. Henifin refused, telling him the meters were accurate.
In another email from July 28, the third-party manager chided the complex owner for failing to pay his bill.
“As far as I know, the electricity is still connected at Blossom, and as such, the high temperatures are not a problem for your tenants. From news reports, they are getting bottled water and water to flush their commodes with, donated to them by a very generous community. You should be providing that! You should be ashamed the Jackson community is picking up your slack,” he wrote.
JXN Water filed suit against Blossom Apartments LLC in the U.S. District Court in August, alleging the complex was stealing water.
Blossom filed a counterclaim weeks later, citing negligence, breach of contract, and violation of due process rights.
The counterclaim became the third suit filed by multi-family owners over inaccurate water bills.
Woodlands Property Holdings and Blue Magma Residential, a group that owns six Jackson apartment complexes, also filed a suit raising concerns about meters.
Like in the case of Blossom, the companies allege JXN Water dismissed their claims and told apartment owners their properties had leaks.
Jackson resident Jacqueline Archie said JXN Water also told her she had a leak, but tells 3 On Your Side her plumber couldn’t find one.
In July, Archie received a bill showing she used 19 CCFs of water, or more than 14,000 gallons. In September, she was billed for 22,242 gallons used.
“I don’t use that much water,” she said. “I have to have assistance… to help me do certain things that require the use of water.”
Archie says her biggest frustration was not being able to speak with someone about her bill in person.
“They keep you on hold for an hour, hour and a half. [They say] somebody’s going to call you back. You never receive a call. I just think it’s ridiculous the way they’re doing us with water,” she said.
In the meantime, Archie was unsure how she would pay her $4,000 outstanding balance.
“I have to make a choice some months between whether to buy my medication or to pay more on the water bill,” she said. “There’s no way I can pay that amount.”
In 2023, Henifin closed the city’s WSBA Office at the Metrocenter Mall and moved customer service to ProTel, a private call center in Pearl.
In the second quarter of 2025, the center received 26,117 calls, with an average wait time of 1.89 minutes and an average talk time of 3.42 minutes.
Henifin says wait times have been slashed, and overall service has improved since ProTel took over.
However, wait times at the call center have gone up since shut-offs have increased, as evidenced by an October 28 social media post by the utility.
Even so, many residents have raised concerns about not being able to speak to JXN Water officials in person.
Henifin says the majority of customer complaints can be handled over the phone, but tells 3 On Your Side that JXN Water is putting a mechanism in place to allow in-person appointments.
“We don’t think there’s going to be an overwhelming demand for appointments, but we are working on ways to improve that appointment process,” he said. “That should be on our website soon.”
Even so, on November 1, Henifin announced the creation of JXN Water’s new Appointment Center at the Jackson Medical Mall.
A release announcing the center calls it a “space created to provide deeper support for customers navigating complex account issues.”
Customers can set up appointments by visiting JXN Water’s website. JXN Water spokeswoman Aisha Coleman says it will be open as needed, as customers set up appointments.
Weeks before the appointment center was announced, Henifin defended the call center, saying ProTel was doing a “really good” job.
“We’ve [got] plenty of examples of where we’ve messed up. And that’s going to happen. No matter what business you’re in and who’s taking the calls, it’s going to happen,” he said. “But we work to fix those and improve on them each time.”
That appointment center appears to have come out of a September court order handed down by Wingate. In it, the judge directed Henifin to create a “dedicated online portal” for customers to report not receiving bills, and to establish the “availability of in-person reporting at JXN Water customer service offices.”
Beginning in January, Henifin also will be required to file quarterly reports with the court detailing the number of new accounts added, the number of customers reporting not receiving bills, and how those changes have impacted revenue.
State leaders, meanwhile, continue to have questions. Nelson had hoped to confront Henifin at a House Select Committee meeting last month. However, the third-party manager could not attend because of a travel conflict.
Since then, the two have spoken, and Nelson is planning to sit down with Henifin in person.
“He says there are a lot of things that I’m not aware of, and internal issues possibly, and I want to know what those are,” he said. “I don’t think [there’s] anything that… can justify a $70,000 water bill.”
Nelson says it would likely be difficult for the Legislature to provide any additional oversight of JXN Water while the city’s system is in receivership.
“What we can do is, we can make recommendations to Judge Wingate,” he said. “[The judge] is aware of the billing issues… That’s why he, in his previous order, ordered JXN Water to start working to correct that.”
“I’m really excited to see what that is going to look like.”
Residents like Laswell are hopeful help will come sooner than later.
At the time this story was written, the Northeast Jackson homeowner had been without water for more than two weeks, and he was still looking at what he could cut out of his budget to pay his $3,100 balance.
The Northeast Jackson resident’s bill was reduced from $31,000 to $3,100 after 3 On Your Side reached out to JXN Water about his situation.
Laswell spent more than $6,000 to find and repair a major leak at his home, and his water bill was not adjusted until we started looking into his story.
Now, to have his service restored, the Navy vet will be required to pay half of the past-due amount up front and agree to a payment plan for the remaining amount.
“I can’t afford probably $25 or $30 a month… I might even be able to get as high as $50… But that’s going to be $600 a year on $3,000. That’s five years,” he said. “I’d really like to start with a clean slate.”
Want more WLBT news in your inbox? Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.
See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please click here to report it and include the headline of the story in your email.
Copyright 2025 WLBT. All rights reserved.