West Plains City Utilities customers might want to take a close look at their bills, especially if they believe they are being overcharged.
The Quill recently received a letter from the utilities department stating the business had been undercharged and a demand charge should have been applied as a commercial or industrial customer that typically uses more electricity than residential customers.
The letter, dated April 9, went on to explain the demand fee is based on the highest usage during a 15-minute period last year and the Quill had been charged a commercial energy rate, but an additional demand charge of $7.53 per kilowatt hour.
The part of the letter that caught the attention of Quill Customer Service Representative Travis Rhoads was the part that said the current peak for the account was 387 kilowatt hours, calculated to increase the monthly bill by about triple, adding about $3,000 to the monthly bill and bringing it to about a $4,000 total.
The letter said the Quill would be given a grace period to allow time to adjust to the “significant” demand charge and the increase would be applied to the April usage and due in June. The letter also encouraged customers with questions to contact the utilities office or by emails sent directly to City Customer Service Supervisor Tellcy Osborn.
Understandably alarmed by the increase, Rhoads attempted contact with the city utilities department through several phone calls that went unreturned, then emails to both Osborn and City Utilities Director Shayne Eades.
In the meantime Rhoads reviewed past bills and a printout of account history going back to March of last year and, after speaking with the owners of nearby businesses, also discovered the Quill account was being charged for a shared dumpster and, for several months, had additional monthly commercial refuse charges of about $150.
Osborn returned an email on Thursday indicating there had been a typo on the peak calculation and a decimal was missing, putting the actual rate at 38.7 kilowatt hours instead of 387. Osborn apologized for the error, but an updated demand reading indicated it will be 39.2 kilowatt hours versus 38.7.
Osborn also reviewed the refuse charge and confirmed the Quill should have only been billed for the dumpster, and a credit of about $616 would be applied to the account.
Electricity rate increases happen on a pretty regular basis and are not new to either residential or commercial and industrial customers,
The West Plains City Council voted in November to approve a 7% electricity rate increase; increases are not uncommon and City Administrator Sam Anselm remarked at the time that the hike was partly necessitated by obligations to comply with state and federal regulations, and a need to have reserve funds in place to secure grant and loan funding for infrastructure improvements.
As of Friday morning, three West Plains residents are on the agenda to speak about their utilities concerns at Monday’s city council meeting, to be held at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1910 Holiday Lane.
The increase to the Quill’s monthly electric bill will be about $290 instead of $2,900, and an error on a refuse charge resulted in a credit of several hundred dollars that might not have been noticed until reviewed and questioned by Rhoads, making the moral of the story, “If you see something, say something.”
While it seems unlikely the omission of a decimal in a customer service letter would have been translated to actual the billing calculation, it did lead to some closer scrutiny of other charges. And for residents and business owners operating under a tight budget that scrutiny might just pay, at least a little.
