More discussion on the City of Fulton's proposed electric rate increases, including a five-year analysis of the city's electric fund and the historic cost of purchased power, followed at Tuesday evening's city council meeting as the Sun prepared for press time.
Ward I Councilman Wayne Chailland asked Chief Financial Officer Kathy Holschlag which consumers the increase would affect the most if the council were to approve the bill at a future council meeting.
According to the first page of the council packet from Tuesday night's meeting, Fulton consumers using 500 kilowatt-hour (kwh) who currently pay $50 would pay $4 more each month for electricity, and those using 1,000 kwh and currently paying about $95.60 would pay $5 more each month. Consumers using 2,000 kwh - an above average reading according to city officials - would see a $13 increase on their monthly utilities statement.
Those consuming a considerable amount of electricity - 4,000 kwh - would be the most affected by the proposed increase, as their current bill of $365.50 would increase by $29 monthly.
An analysis of the electric fund with audited numbers from 2010 - 14 showed that "revenues are basically flat," Holschlag said.
"If you look at the difference between 2010 and 2014, what, $25,000 or $26,000, it's almost level straight across the board there," she told the council.
Holschlag then went over the historic cost of purchased power in the same time frame. According to the third page of the council packet, the total cost of purchased power in 2010 was about $7.28 million and increased to $10.16 million in 2014.
"You can see with the exception of a slight dip there, it just continues to increase," Holschlag told the council, referencing the same page of the council packet. "So we don't have any additional revenue string to offset the increase in cost."
Utilities Superintendent Darrell Dunlap discussed page four of the council packet showing a line graph of the average electricity rates and pointed out that national average rates increased the most between 2004 - 07, right before the most recent rate increase was implemented in Fulton in 2008.
"It also shows that states that decided to go deregulated - actually their power costs are higher than states such as Missouri that still have traditional utilities," Dunlap told the council.
Following a more in-depth discussion on energy data from Dunlap, the council looked for the first reading of the bill that would establish electric rates for the city. After first reading, the council made the motion to pass the ordinance to a second reading at the next council meeting.
Before the bill's advancement, Ward 1 Councilman Mike West conveyed a message to citizens of Fulton, "We resist raising these rates as long as we can, but we should've done it earlier because we're sorta behind the eight ball now."
West asked Director of Administration Bill Johnson if the proposed increase would make the city even, caught up or a little ahead in terms of electric rates. Johnson told West that he discussed it with Mayor LeRoy Benton several times, saying "there's no other right way to do it."
"Would you rather have 2 percent every two to three years, or would you rather have 5 percent every seven to eight years?" Johnson asked West.
West replied that increasing the rate over time may have alleviated the financial burden more for citizens, adding that the numbers discussed at the meeting "weren't that bad."
In other city council news, Assistant Director of Administration Jerry Sorte informed the council that the first reading of the budget and a public hearing is scheduled for the next city council meeting.
"We've got a total of approximately $410, 000 in the budget distributed across all the funds for employee raises, and we discussed at the council budget work session last week how those raises would be distributed," Sorte said.