Austin Energy’s discount program keeps growing after 3rd year of boosted enrollment efforts

AUSTIN (KXAN) — For the last few years, Austin Energy has been working on growing enrollment of eligible customers in its Customer Assistance Program, or CAP.

Austin Energy sent a memo to the mayor and city council last week, letting them know that as of the end of June, 81,372 income-eligible households had been enrolled in CAP, which was slightly below the utility’s 2025 enrollment goal of 83,700.

Still, the number of enrolled customers has grown significantly since Austin Energy started getting more aggressive with its enrollment strategies in 2022, after a city council resolution set enrollment targets for the CAP. At the time, CAP served about 35,000 households, according to the memo.

Kerry Overton, Deputy General Manager and Chief Customer Officer at Austin Energy, said the utility provider is excited about the progress it’s made in expanding affordability through the CAP.

“Council directed us, over a three-year period, to reach about 90% of what we believe our customers — residents who live inside the Austin territory — to be enrolled into the program to receive discount programs,” Overton explained.

“In that challenge, we took that on and [were] able to, over three three-year period, go from 35,000 eligible cap customers… and we ended just in this June time period with 81,000,” he said.

Overton said Austin Energy will also continue to work on the program beyond the timeline of the council directive, which spanned 2023-2025.

Below is a breakdown of the enrollment targets set by city council, and the number of households Austin Energy enrolled per each year targeted by the 2022 resolution:

• Year 1 (June 2023): Enroll 42,780 households
  Actual (reported July 2023): Enrolled 53,405 households
• Year 2 (June 2024): Enroll 66,690 households
  Actual (reported August 2024): Enrolled 69,392 households
• Year 3 (June 2025): Enroll 83,700 households
  Actual: (reported July 2025): 81,372 households

Austin Energy expanded eligibility for CAP by coordinating with public and nonprofit services that assist low-income households. According to the memo, those service providers offer programs like the Travis County Indigent Health Care Program, Caritas of Austin’s Basic Needs Program, and several housing authority programs that serve residents in subsidized or income-restricted housing. The memo said those partnerships enabled more residents who were already receiving income-based services to qualify for CAP through verified enrollment.

Austin Energy implemented the following operational changes:

• Enhanced accuracy in identifying eligible participants, especially for SNAP
  (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) recipients;
• Launched an online enrollment and partner portal for easier program access; and
• Updated systems to reduce enrollment processing times from 90 days to 15 days.

“The Assistance Program is important not only for Austin Energy and Austin water, but for the city as a whole, because it’s our mandate as a public utility to make sure that we are making and bringing solutions in people’s lives to make life more affordable and make it better for them,” Overton said. “We are part of this community, we’re owned, you know, by the public, and so therefore we have to participate in the stakeholders and have understanding [of] what the needs are, and anywhere where we can relieve those pressures to make life better.”