Columbus Light and Water customers will see a 1.5 percent rate increase on their electric bills starting Oct. 1.
The CLW commission approved the increase by a 3-1 margin at its monthly meeting Thursday. Commissioner Brandy Gardner opposed the rate hike.
CLW purchases its power from the Tennessee Valley Authority, which announced this summer it would charge its client utilities 1.5 percent more starting in October. That will cost CLW an extra $555,000 per year, General Manager Todd Gale said, and commissioners opted to pass that expense on to the utility’s 12,500 customers.
Absorbing the TVA increase would have forced CLW to dip into its roughly $7 million electricity operating fund balance, which over time would become unsustainable, commission chair Michael Tate told The Dispatch after the meeting.
“We’re trying to do what’s best for longevity,” he said. “One thing we have no control over is the weather and natural disasters. That’s what our reserves are actually there for.”
The TVA hike is added to a $1.77 increase the commission previously approved to the customer base fee, which will be $10.38 starting Oct. 1.
For example, a current bill that shows $100 in power usage totals $108.61 once an $8.61 customer base fee is added. After Oct. 1, that same usage — with the 1.5 percent rate hike and the higher customer fee — would cost $111.88.
Commissioners disagree
Tension arose at the table Thursday between Tate and Gardner during the vote for the rate increase. When Gardner opposed, Tate stared at her for a few seconds before turning to commission attorney Jeff Smith to make sure the record showed the ‘No’ vote. Then he turned back to Gardner and said, “That was mandatory from TVA. We didn’t really have a say.”
“That’s not the way I understood it,” Gardner replied.
After the meeting, Gardner told The Dispatch she seeks to avoid passing rate increases to customers, and she wished the commission had taken more time to weigh its options.
“The option the board chose was not the one I wanted,” she said, though she didn’t offer a specific option she would have preferred. “I think we should listen to our customers and see what’s going on with them.”
Though Tate hazed Gardner slightly at the commission table following her dissent — he expressed surprise at two unanimous votes that followed, adding after the second, “Ms. Gardner, that’s two in a row” — he told The Dispatch after the meeting he respects her opinion and understands her point of view.
“She’s our emotion on the board,” Tate said of Gardner. “We need that, and we appreciate her input.”
4-County Electric Power Association, which serves more than 47,000 rural customers in Lowndes, Oktibbeha, Clay and Noxubee counties, will absorb the TVA expense without a rate increase. A press release 4-County issued Thursday said cost-saving measures — such as recently consolidating from six offices to two — and “fiscal prudence” allowed the association avoided passing the increase to its customers.
Facebook woes
Gale on Thursday also expressed to CLW commissioners his discontent with a rash of customers complaining about their bill amounts on social media websites like Facebook.
He reduced much of the social media frenzy to “people with personal and political agendas” who were posting without all the facts.
“The war-mongering and the fear-mongering needs to stop,” Gale said during the meeting, later adding, “I’m tired of (CLW) being the scapegoat.”
He presented the board with three years’ worth of residential rate averages broken down by month, which showed July and August as the highest usage months for each of those years. Those records show the average residential bills for July ($163.84) and August ($160.72) this year have been the highest of those three years, ahead of July averages for 2014 ($150.24) and 2015 ($153.75) and August averages for the prior two years ($133.74 in 2014 and $156.46 in 2015).
“When people say their bills are $100 higher than they were last year, there’s something else going on,” he told commissioners. “They need to call customer service and we’ll work through it with them.”
Commissioners briefly discussed options for better informing customers of how their bills work. Gale said new meters CLW will install within the next year will allow the utility to track customer usage hourly. From there, he said he hopes to offer an online portal for customers to track their own usage.
“I don’t have a silver bullet for educating the public,” Gale told The Dispatch after the meeting. “Nobody goes to community meetings anymore, but a lot of people go to social media. … Even when people call our customer service, they feel powerless because they’re talking about a charge for a service they’ve already used. We need a way to put the power in the hands of the customer (such as the portal).”
Water budget
Commissioners approved a water department budget for the upcoming fiscal year that projects $11.19 million in revenues and $9.7 million in general expenses. The budget also includes $1.33 million in planned capital expenditures.
For this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, Gale reported a net surplus of almost $437,000 in the water and sewer departments. That number should rise by about another $100,000 after insurance claims CLW prepaid are reimbursed, he said.
Gale partially credited an 8-percent rate increase the board approved in April 2015 for the surplus. Next year’s budget includes no rate increase for water and sewer.
Zack Plair is the managing editor for The Dispatch.
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