Ameren's Clean Slate money gone for area

On May 1, AmerenUE gave $200,000 to East Missouri Action Agency in Cape Girardeau as part of a $3 million program that was intended to pay past-due bills for customers who have fallen in arrears and fall below the poverty line.

On May 6, the money was gone.

Carla Vollertsen, the community service representative for the Cape Girardeau office of the East Missouri Action Agency, said that the money went to pay for the bills of about 105 people in this area.

The average bill was about $2,000 she said, though one was as high as $9,000 and some were as low as $500. She said they had been directed by Ameren to pay bills on a first-come/first-serve basis.

She said that the money was gone so fast shows the need.

"They know there's a need for this," she said. "They know what those account balances are."

Vollertsen said they are still get tons of calls.

"We had several people who were counting on it and we're not going to be able to help them with this money," she said.

Ameren announced last month that during May it would use $3 million of $110 million it received from a rate-reduction settlement approved last year by the Missouri Public Service Commission to finance the so-called Clean Slate Program. The money has been sent to 40 social-service agencies in Missouri, including the East Missouri Action Agency in Cape Girardeau.