QUITMAN, Ga. (WALB) - Georgia is facing some of the highest utility rates in the country. In smaller communities, many residents are struggling to keep up.

Recently in Quitman, the city council approved a routine utility bill increase for the first time since 1997. Now residents are seeing bills at almost $600.

Gary Christian, who lives in Quitman, said, “If you can’t pay it, and you put it on a payment plan, one or two weeks you pay $100, that $400 bill becomes another $600 in the future.”

The 3% increase to utility bills came after multiple storms that caused outages across the city, leading citizens to wonder if faulty equipment or misreading had something to do with the surge in bills.

“Check the transformers to make sure they aren’t out of date or whatever to supply more power to your house than they need. There has to be something instead of just saying ‘that’s your bill, pay for it,‘” Andrew Wade, another resident, said.

The city of Quitman still operates standard meters instead of smart meters, used by some larger cities.

Wade said, “If you call it out to me, I might misunderstand what you said, and I don’t want to ask what you said so I just write down a number.”

“And when you do that, that one number could put your bill off over $100, by just that one number,” Christian said.

These are just two of the residents speaking up about the issue, others have shared concerns on social media, and some are just paying their bills.

Christian said, “We can’t get nothing done when one or two people attend meetings. You have to come and crowd. Only when you’re coming in crowds is when it’s affecting you and you can’t have that mentality. We have to stay together.”

Residents say this is one way the city can address the impacts.

WALB requested to speak with the city clerk to ask some of the questions from citizens but we have not heard back.

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