Ayden woman calls for change after being asked to pay $450 to change name from husband’s name to hers on utilities

AYDEN, N.C. (WITN) - A woman in Ayden is drawing attention to a utility fee the town is charging that she feels is way too high.

Eleanor Boyd lost her husband in February and wanted to switch the name on her utility account from her husband’s to hers.

Same address – just a name change. She never expected the answer she heard.

Our WITN First Alert Investigates these deposits that require hundreds of dollars from those who may be on fixed incomes.

Eleanor Boyd, 93, lives on Country Club Drive in Ayden. She lived there with her husband, Tom, before he passed away in February.

Thinking she was doing the right thing, Boyd went to Ayden Town Hall to ask for the name on their utilities to be switched from Tom’s to hers, but to continue at the same address.

When she handed in the application to make the change, she learned about the deposit: $450 to make her the administrator on the account.

Initially, she was shocked.

“I told her, well, I shouldn’t have even told you. And she said, well, we know now,” Boyd said, describing her interaction with the person at the desk.

Boyd says she was told she couldn’t go back on the request to make the change and would have to foot the bill.

“They were gonna cut off my lights if I didn’t pay it within 31 days,” she explained.

We asked the town about the deposit and were told that it exists to help cover unpaid utility bills. The town says even that is often not enough to cover the unpaid bills and they have to utilize a state program to help with outstanding balances.

When it comes to the account of a person who has died, the town says that it must absorb any balances on that person’s account if the trustee or spouse do not pay the final bill.

Boyd says that she and her husband always paid their bills and she’s never received any kind of return deposit from the town following her husband’s passing.

She contacted a town commissioner who got the issue added to the next council meeting’s agenda.

“When they got to the meeting, they tabled it,” Boyd explained with exasperation.

Now it’s slated for discussion on April 14th.

Boyd says she’s willing to fight, and she’s not just doing it for herself.

“Even though it would have been a burden to pay $450, I could have paid it. But who else are they doing it to that can’t pay it?” she said.

As the clock ticks on the 31 days Boyd was given to make the payment, she knows it may get to the point where her power is shut off – a consequence she’s prepared to face.

“Everything I’m doing here today is to help myself and others, and I’m just going to go to the limit,” explained Boyd.

Regarding that state program we mentioned - NC Debt Setoff - Ayden says it’s submitted over $94,000 in outstanding residential balances in the past year, but has only received just shy of $30,000 to assist.

Town manager Scott Howard says the fee is a “safeguard so that customers that do not pay their bill do not have to be subsidized by most of the people who do pay their bill.”

WITN reached out to some other communities in Pitt County to get some context on that $450 deposit.

In Farmville, if the right documentation is provided, the town manager said a name switch like this would be free.

Similarly, in Grifton - we were told there is no cost to make a switch like this.

For Bethel, GUC handles their water and sewer, and a spokesperson said they would charge a $5 administrative fee.