By: Charlotte R. Lane, WV PSC Chairman
The Public Service Commission of West Virginia has a process in place by which we help local utilities establish proper rates for their services.
This is traditionally referred to by us as a Rule 19-A application.
It technically carries another number under our rules, but for common usage, it remains 19-A.
This is a unique procedure that allows a small utility to ask our staff to develop what should be the proper rates for billing for that utility’s services.
This process is available only to smaller utilities, which are defined by us as having income of less than $3 million annually and having fewer than 4,000 customers.
The utility submits its financial information with its applications, plus a few other things, to help the commission in its determinations.
Then, based upon the commission staff’s investigation of the utility’s earnings, revenue requirements, adequacy of rates and quality of service, our staff calculates for the utility what its future rates should be.
Once that is done, the commission requires that those proposed rate changes be published so the public is made aware of a proposed change in rates. This is done by including the proposed new rates in a newspaper advertisement and by including them as an insert in the customers’ next bills.
If a protest, or protests, are received, the commission may then schedule a hearing on the matter.
If no protest is received – and this is often the case – then the commission will issue an order allowing those new rates to take effect.
This is not an exclusive remedy, however. A utility may elect to calculate its own rates and file a case with the commission.
The Rule 19-A procedure is handy for a couple of reasons.
If you are a smaller utility and do not have a large staff, or you do not have a financial expert on staff, then we can help you. And it won’t cost you anything for us to do the calculations.
We find that smaller utilities on tight budgets struggle to have even basic staff to run these very complicated operations.
Also, sometimes local bodies don’t like to impose rate increases on themselves and their neighbors. We understand this.
Using this procedure, they can quietly say they increased rates at the suggestion of the Public Service Commission.
This is just one other service that the commission provides to help local bodies that are otherwise struggling for assistance in these trying times.
With more than 500 smaller utilities out there, this is one of the commission’s most important, yet understated, means of assisting them.