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Originally Posted by HSV Resident
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Brace yourself for a more expensive power bill.
The Huntsville City Council on Thursday night approved a 3.5 percent electric rate hike sought by Huntsville Utilities -- the first local increase since 2002.
Combined with an unrelated 2 percent rate hike OK'd last month by the Tennessee Valley Authority, utility customers can expect their monthly bill to jump by about $7 beginning Oct. 1.
President and CEO William C. Pippin said Huntsville Utilities has to charge more to restore the "financial stability" of an electric system that has operated in the red since 2008.
Revenues have lagged behind expenses for the past three years, with losses of $3 million in 2008, $11.1 million in 2009 and $3.95 million in 2010.
The rate hike passed 4-0, with Will Culver, Bill Kling, John Olshefski and Mark Russell all voting yes.
Richard Showers was at a church conference and missed the meeting.
Culver said he knows it's not a great time to ask people to pay more for electricity. However, Huntsville Utilities has to be able to quickly get the power back on during future ice storms and tornadoes, he said.
"While I personally don't like it," Culver said, "I'm going to support it."
Kling urged utility officials to show more compassion to customers with legitimate financial troubles.
The utility's switch to a new billing system in May triggered widespread complaints about rude clerks, long lines at utility payment centers and long waits to get questions answered by phone.
While the utility extended lobby hours and hired more calltakers, Olshefski said he remains concerned about its customer service.
"They added a few (employees) now," he said, "but where are we going to be in six months?"
Also Thursday, Mayor Tommy Battle presented his proposed $228.6 million city budget for fiscal 2012.
Battle said the city needs to ramp up spending on basic services -- street resurfacing, ditch maintenance, replacing worn-out garbage trucks -- but stay lean in case the country slides back into a recession.
His budget plan grants step raises to eligible city employees -- at a cost of $1.3 million -- but no cost-of-living increase. A limited hiring freeze would also remain in effect.
Culver said he wants to consider giving municipal workers a 5 percent cost-of-living raise. Their last COLA was a 2 percent pay bump in 2008.
Finance Director Randy Taylor said a 5 percent raise would cost the city $5.6 million.
Kling said he likes the emphasis on meat-and-potatoes government services. For example, Battle is recommending $400,000 for drainage ditch maintenance after halting that work for a year to save money.
"They're not glamorous," Kling said, "but that's what we want to provide to the community."
The council scheduled a work session for 4:30 p.m. Thursday to talk about the budget in more detail. A spending plan for 2012 needs to be adopted before the fiscal year starts Oct. 1.
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You can thank SAP for this. I have friends in the inner circle at HSV utilities. They tried to implement SAP and it's been a complete failure. They where warned by numerous consulting firms that specialize in Advisory, to NOT to go with SAP. It's not designed for utility companies.
The upper level management received some kick backs from SAP in return for signing a contract. So far, tt's been a complete disaster, and all of the upper level management have taken new jobs with the help of SAP.
At one point, everyone that had signed up for Automatic bill pay, was debited 3 times in one month. You couldn't call customer support, because their call system can only handle 20 people in the queue at a time; the rest just get a busy signal or it hangs up.
So now, HSV utilities can't afford to hire decent SAP contractors to fix their problems. The ones they do hire, fly in from India once a month and patch up the problems. They where spending almost $20K a month just in travel expense for one consultant plus $300/hour.