Hyde Park Electric Department has filed for an almost 16% rate hike for its customers this fall.
The request has prompted a formal review by the state’s Public Utility Commission into the financial underpinnings of the rate increase.
The municipal utility has not raised rates for its more than 1,300 customers since 2010.
The utility’s transmission and operating costs and property taxes, however, have been going up. Last year, the utility operated at a loss of over $200,000, according to testimony from Steven Farman, manager of rates and planning at Vermont Public Power Supply Association.
In July, the utility filed for a 15.69% rate increase effective Sept. 1.
Current residential customers pay .09337 for the first 100kWh used per month and .16725 per kWh over that.
Carol Brown, general manager for the Hyde Park Electric Department, said that the utility knew a rate increase was needed since 2017 but delayed filing for one until its billing system conversion was completed.
“This has been a time-consuming and arduous task for our two-person staff,” she wrote in testimony filed with the PUC.
The Department of Public Service, which acts as the ratepayer advocate, recommended on Aug. 19 that the PUC open an investigation into the request as the utility had not had a rate adjustment in almost a decade and was seeking a “substantial increase.” The PUC granted that request 10 days later.
Christine Hallquist, Hyde Park resident and former CEO of Vermont Electric Co-op, said electrical utilities in Vermont typically hold off on filing for rate increases for as long as possible to reduce attorney fees and other costs associated with PUC proceedings.
“You end up saving money if you hold off because if you went every year, you’d have to pay those costs” annually, she said.
Hallquist added that while the one-time rate increase may look large, it is “on par” with the rate of inflation since the utility’s last rate increase.
Ken Nolan, head of Vermont Public Power Supply Association, a group of municipal utilities that includes Hyde Park Electric Department, agreed that “the level of burden involved” is a barrier to filing annual rate increases.
Dawn Butterfield, co-director of family and community support services for Capstone Community Action, said an electric rate increase of that magnitude would impact limited household budgets, especially during the winter months.
“If you have a $100 bill, which is average for low-income housing, that’s $15 you’re not putting towards toilet paper, food or other things that people who are living close to the bone,” said Butterfield. “It will be hard.”
Vermonters who heat with electricity and make at or below 185% of the federal poverty level can apply for assistance through the state’s Low Income Heating Assistance Program, said Sean Brown, deputy commissioner of the economic services division for the state Department for Children and Families.
In recent years, the number of people using that program has been going down, from a high of 27,776 households in 2013 to a projected 19,000 this winter, he added.
In addition to publicly funded assistance programs, Green Mountain Power and Vermont Gas both have power cost assistance programs for their customers. Brown, of Hyde Park Electric Department, said that the municipal power utility is not able to offer the same programs as larger, investor-owned utilities.
