Grant PUD commissioners to vote on 3% overall rate increase

EPHRATA — Grant County PUD commissioners will vote on a proposal for a 3% overall rate increase, effective April 1, at the Jan. 9 commission meeting. While the overall increase is 3%, individual classes may pay more or less than that.

Julio Aguirre Carmona, the PUD’s rates and pricing program manager, said that will be the recommendation from PUD staff. If commissioners approve it, it will be the same policy they followed in 2023. 

If commissioners approve the 3% overall proposal, residential and irrigation rates would increase by 3.5%; so would the rate for general service and large general service, which are typically businesses. The rates for large industrial customers would increase by 1.74%, and for industrial customers by 5.25%. The difference between the industrial classes is based on the amount of electricity they use. 

The new rate would be in effect for one year. Typically commissioners review rates at the end of the year, deciding whether or not to raise them while discussing the next year’s budget. 

Commissioners also are reviewing the policy used to set rates, and Commissioner Nelson Cox said in October he wanted that to be a conversation with commissioners and customers over the winter.

A key component of rate-setting policy is a periodic analysis of the cost of providing electrical service to each customer class. That’s not the only component though, Aguirre Carmona said.

“Our current rates are not designed to collect 100% of the cost by class. So there are some differences between the actual rates we charge and the estimated costs we incur to serve each of those classes,” he said. 

The utility district owns and operates two hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River, the result of which is lower rates for PUD customers. Commissioners have determined that the benefits that come from that will be allocated first to the PUD’s longtime customers, called core customers.

“We have this policy goal of helping our core customer group, so by design the rates are not collecting, on a class-by-class basis, 100% of the cost,” Aguirre Carmona said. 

The cost analysis has shown residential, business and irrigation customers are paying rates that don’t cover the cost of providing service to them. Industrial and large industrial customers are paying more than their cost of service. Commissioners are looking at other methods of establishing rates, which will be part of that ongoing rate-setting discussion. 

Commissioners approved a resolution in December governing rate-setting policy, one that Commissioner Larry Schaapman said was a short-term fix while they reviewed long-term policy. The new resolution, like the one it replaced, sets the goal of setting the rates for customer classes within a specific boundary above or below the cost of providing their service. The previous policy stipulated that the goals should be achieved by the end of 2023. The PUD didn’t hit that target, however.

Cheryl Schweizer may be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald.com.