PUC payment plan aids delinquent customers
Consumers who fall behind on their utility bills can work out a payment plan with the state Public Utility Commission even if they already made a deal with electric, natural gas or water companies, the PUC ruled Thursday.
The 3 to 2 decision follows a request by Gov. Ed Rendell last week to soften rules set under Chapter 14, a year-old state law designed to make it easier for utilities to enforce payment plans or cut off service to people who ignore their bills but can afford to pay.
"If a customer doesn't like the utility's payment plan, now it's not a take-it-or-leave-it situation," PUC spokeswoman Jennifer Kocher said.
The change could ease the burden on customers who worry they can't afford the amount they agreed to pay the utility, she said.
Maryellen Hayden, organizer for the community activist organization Allegheny County ACORN, applauds any effort state regulators make to retool provisions of the law to prevent people from losing heat in their homes.
Hayden has been living with her daughter since losing gas service several weeks ago at her Knoxville home. She said about 150 ACORN members are trying to cope without power or gas.
"This is going to be a cold winter, and I'm very concerned," she said.
Utility officials said they would work within the PUC's rules and declined further comment until they can study the decision.
Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania spokesman Rob Boulware said the company supported an earlier PUC interpretation of Chapter 14's language on payment plans, which said the commission couldn't set up a payment arrangement for a customer who has defaulted on a previous one, unless the person's income changed.
State Consumer Advocate Irwin A. "Sonny" Popowsky called the PUC decision a positive step.
"Under the former interpretation, which I thought was incorrect, we know there were thousands turned away who never got a chance to get a payment agreement," he said.
The commission's staff will have to follow the law's strict payback schedules based on income. Appealing to the PUC doesn't automatically lower a person's bill, he said, "but the point is that now they have an alternative."
Customers will have to call their utilities before seeking the PUC's help. Anyone who breaks the utilities' state-mandated, customer assistance plans -- which deeply discount bills, paid for by using fees assessed on other customers -- would not get a payment plan from the commission.
State figures suggest that more people could be heading into cold weather without electric or natural gas service this fall. The PUC listed the number of households statewide without electric or gas service as of Oct. 1 at 86,496 -- 15 percent higher than last year.
"A 15 percent increase is not something we like to see, but unfortunately it's what is happening now," the PUC's Kocher said, although she and utility officials emphasized the number is expected to drop dramatically when people secure federal heating assistance money and other help.
Thousands more will drop from the "still off" rolls as the utilities contact each household without service. The Oct. 1 numbers include customers such as college students who move out of apartments without squaring their debts, for example.
Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Light surveyed 3,566 residential properties late last year and found 1,483 to be vacant. Another 1,100 customers had made arrangements for reconnection. Fewer than 1,000 "couldn't be confirmed, one way or another," spokesman Matt Pitzarella said, and by the time workers revisited in February there were fewer than 700.
The companies report "real numbers" to the PUC in December, said J. Michael Love, president and CEO of the Energy Association of Pennsylvania, which represents electric and gas companies statewide.
Ron Magnuson, vice president for customer services at Allegheny Power in Greensburg, said the company is contacting everyone without service -- particularly low-income customers -- to try to arrange reconnections.
He believes time will bear out that Chapter 14 "didn't create a problem as much as it created a one-time blip of terminations." Utility payment rules in other states are much more restrictive, he said. Pennsylvania in the past allowed customers to run up thousands of dollars in nonpayments under a series of payment plans.
Rendell announced a series of initiatives last week, saying consumers deserve a second-chance payment plan. He asked the Legislature to approve $15 million to supplement Pennsylvania's federal allocation for heating assistance this winter.
Additional Information:
Still off
Based on service shutoffs and reconnections, the state Public Utility Commission counted customers lacking power or natural gas as of Oct. 1. The numbers are expected to drop significantly when final data is reported in December:
