Senators debated Monday how the V.I. Water and Power Authority should share information with ratepayers and what they can do to ensure government agencies pay their utility bills on time, at a hearing of the Committee of Government Services and Housing.
A bill submitted by non-committee member Sen. Kenneth Gittens would force WAPA to publish a slew of technical data in local newspapers on a monthly basis. He said the move would increase transparency and encourage the authority to perform better.
Under the legislation, WAPA would have to publish the quantity of power produced during the month, the amount of power sold, the amount of fuel burned, the amount of fuel purchased, the unit price of the fuel, the total price paid for the fuel, the name of the seller or sellers of the fuel, the delivery costs of the fuel, the heat content of the fuel and information regarding blackouts, their duration and steps taken to fix them.
Gittens said he did not believe the measure would cost WAPA any money to enact because internal reports already measure those quantities. He said he believed newspapers would publish the information free of charge, though this would prove to be a point of contention during the hearing.
M. Thomas Jackson, chairman of the Public Services Committee, the body that regulates WAPA, began his testimony by flatly stating he believed this to be incorrect.
“I don’t believe for one minute that we won’t have to pay for it,” he said.
Hugo Hodge Jr., executive director of WAPA, said in his testimony that they estimated the measure could cost as much as $83,000 a year.
He said the amount of information requested would require two full newspaper pages to publish. He said WAPA contacted the territory’s two print newspapers and received a quote for two full-page ads and based his estimate on that figure.
Hodge pointed out that the law required all of the information to be published, so it would not be sufficient to release the information in a press release to the papers and trust them to write it up on their own.
He said if they decided not to run the story or edit some information out, WAPA would be in violation of the law as it is written. As such, they would have to purchase the ad space to ensure the information was published in its entirety.
Hodge went on to offer lower cost alternatives to publishing in the print media.
Both he and Jackson pointed out to the senators that the majority of the information called for in the bill was already posted quarterly on WAPA’s website in their “consumer friendly production reports.” (Residents can find these at www.viwapa.vi under the customer service tab in “rates and fees.”)
Hodge said WAPA would continue making this information available online and would gladly include the extra data requested by the bill.
Hodge said WAPA could also make printed copies of the information available for those without Internet access. He said if that was not sufficient, the authority could also send out the information in “stuffers” included with customers’ paper bills for significantly less than the cost of the newspaper ads.
“I want to be clear on the record. WAPA is in no way, shape or form opposed to providing the information. We just don’t think it makes sense to pay for it,” he said.
Several senators expressed concern that any additional costs put on WAPA would simply be passed on to consumers in their bills.
“As much as we pay for electricity here in the territory, to exacerbate that with another added cost when the information is available on the website, that is something that concerns me about this,” said Sen. Donald Cole.
Jackson was asked whether he believed consumers would find such detailed information useful or if they even wanted it.
“I made a rough poll on this bill on the street. Of ten people I spoke to, none of them were interested in anything other than knowing whether their bill was going down or going up,” he replied.
The senators ultimately decided to table the measure. Voting to hold in committee were Sens. Cole, Judi Buckley, Craig Barshinger, Diane Capehart, Clifford Graham, Alicia Hansen and Terrence Nelson.
The committee also considered a bill that would create a “single payer utility fund.” The fund, administered by the Department of Finance, would hold all of the money appropriated to government agencies to pay their WAPA bills. Instead of paying their bills directly, agencies would forward their bills to Finance, which would then verify the bills and make payments to WAPA.
Nelson, the bill’s sponsor, said it was intended to ensure government agencies pay their WAPA bills on time and don’t fall into arrears with the authority.
Commissioner of Finance Angel E. Dawson expressed some support for the intention of the bill but ultimately opposed the measure, saying that it added an unnecessary level of bureaucracy to the bill paying process and could result in slower payments being made to WAPA.
He said the work required to verify and process the bills would be an undue burden on his department, which only has six employees. He also said the provision that agencies must forward their bills to Finance could allow some to game the system by claiming a mixup occurred in the paperwork.
“’We sent it to Finance’ will be the cry of every delinquent instrumentality,” Dawson predicted.
Hodge also praised the intent of the bill but harbored reservations. He questioned what would happen if the amount appropriated to pay WAPA bills was insufficient. How could WAPA collect on what it was owed?
Hodge spent the majority of his testimony underscoring the need to find some way to bring all government agencies up to date on their bills. He said the government owed WAPA $19.5 million in overdue electrical bills and $3.1 million in overdue water bills.
He said the bulk of the electrical debt stemmed from streetlights and the territory’s two hospitals.
Hodge said the financial strain caused by this debt often results in deferred maintenance of equipment, which in turn leads to lower efficiency and higher bills.
“Without those funds it’s virtually impossible to maintain the efficiency levels we’re seeking,” he said.
Barshinger submitted an amendment that clarified some of the language in the bill, though he said he did not believe it would be enough to satisfy the objections raised by the testifiers. However, he said he still supported moving the bill forward to the Rules and Judiciary Committee where it could be further revised.
The votes for both the amendment and passing on the bill were identical. Voting in favor were Sens. Barshinger, Buckley, Nelson and Capehart. Sens. Graham and Cole opposed the measures and Sen. Hansen was absent.
A third bill was also approved by the committee raising the maximum loan the V.I. Housing Finance Authority could make to veterans through its veteran home loan program from $110,000 to $220,000.
The bill brings the veterans program in line with the authority’s other loan programs, which had their limits raised to $220,000 under legislation passed by the 29th Legislature.
The committee was scheduled to hear a fourth bill mandating that scrap metal dealers attain special licenses and keep better records of transactions, but it postponed the hearing. Capehart said some of the testifiers mistakenly believed the hearing was only for information-gathering purposes and that a bill had not been drafted yet, so they were unprepared to offer their opinion.
Capehart said Sen. Nereida Rivera-O’Reilly, the bill’s sponsor, requested the postponement.
