The Jackson City Council voted Tuesday in favor of taking the city’s water and sewer systems back from under third-party control.

In 2022, as part of a federal consent decree, U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate put the struggling water system under the control of now JXN Water manager Ted Henifin, who also took over Jackson’s sewer system in 2023. Henifin said repeatedly he planned to stay until 2027, although Wingate has the ultimate say over when and whether to transition control back to the city.

Tuesday’s resolution “encourages” Wingate to reverse the 2022 order. Longtime Ward 3 Councilman Kenneth Stokes introduced the measure and described a strained relationship between the utility and Jackson residents. Stokes characterized the utility as being “disrespectful” and having “talked down” to customers.

“The citizens are beginning to lose faith in JXN Water,” he said.

Specifically, Stokes claimed JXN Water is sending out inaccurate bills and then aggressively shutting off connections until customers make large down payments on their debt.

The council voted 6 to 1 to approve the resolution, with Ward 1 Councilman Ashby Foote the lone dissenting vote.

Later in the day, JXN Water responded in a statement that financial challenges with the water system need resolving before returning control to Jackson. The city, the utility added, is largely at fault for those challenges.

“Significant progress has been made in restoring and maintaining reliable operations,” the statement said. “However, achieving financial stability remains the greatest challenge and must be resolved before any transition can occur. Otherwise, Jackson risks returning to the same conditions that led to the federal government’s intervention.

“The failure of the City’s water and sewer systems can be directly tied to a lack of financial resources — largely due to the City’s past inability or unwillingness to set sustainable rates and ensure all users paid for the services they received. Without a long-term, financially sound plan, the system will inevitably deteriorate again.”

Before Tuesday’s vote, Ward 5 Councilman Vernon Hartley asked the city’s chief administrative officer, Pieter Teeuwissen, if there were plans to transition the system back under Jackson management. Teeuwissen said the court order over the water system says the parties need to have a transition plan in place in October 2026, but added he expects the transition to begin sooner than that.

“I suspect the timeline will be something sooner than what the city previously agreed to,” he said, noting that he, Mayor John Horhn and Henifin met last Friday and are “constantly” meeting to discuss transition options.

JXN Water confirmed they’ve met with the city, but said it will be “months before a viable proposal can be shared.” The statement also said a utility authority with appointed board members would likely need to temporarily run the systems after JXN Water while the city developed a transition plan.

While voting for the resolution, Council President and Ward 4 Councilman Brian Grizzell supported the idea of a separate utility authority. It would be more sustainable, Grizzell said, if the systems weren’t subject to the regular turnover in the mayoral and public works offices.

JXN Water communications officer Aisha Carson said multiple council members have reached out to the utility to request it restore water to connections it turned off due to nonpayment. Carson said the utility couldn’t “cherry pick” which accounts to shut off, and added that the city council had earlier this year asked JXN Water to ramp up collections to address revenue shortages.

“It’s very difficult for us to apply that collections policy when we experience pushback from City Council leaders who have actually told us to ramp up collections,” she said.

Carson said JXN Water is shutting off water connections to about 1,000 accounts a week, a rate its maintained for the last three to four weeks. Earlier in the year, the utility said in its financial plan that it found over 14,000 accounts that receive water but weren’t paying, and that they would be the focus of its collection efforts.

In another move, the council voted unanimously for another resolution to encourage JXN Water to offer bill adjustments. Stokes, who introduced that resolution as well, said customers who see discolored water from their taps should receive a discount.

In August, JXN Water said it was seeing increased levels of manganese, a naturally occurring mineral, in the Ross Barnett Reservoir. While the increase may turn tap water brown in some cases, the utility said, the effect is only “aesthetic,” meaning it’s not a health concern. The utility said at the time it was adjusting treatment techniques to reduce the effect, which Carson said adds to their expenses. But some customers, Stokes said Tuesday, are still not drinking the water when they see the discoloration and instead paying extra to buy bottled water.