In recent years, the activities of the CEO and board of directors of KIUC have seemed to be more that of a utility corporation than of a utility co-op owned by the members. The actions have become unilateral take-it-or-leave-it decisions,
In recent years, the activities of the CEO and board of directors of KIUC have seemed to be more that of a utility corporation than of a utility co-op owned by the members. The actions have become unilateral take-it-or-leave-it decisions, made with little or no member participation.
The smart meter roll out is one such example. Only under extreme public pressure and decisions by the Public Utilities Commission, did they grudgingly allow members to opt-out of having the new meters installed.
For months, CEO Bissel and the KIUC board of directors have been trumpeting the fact that the cost to read the old, nonsmart meters is $340,000. They now wish to charge an additional $10.57 per month to read these nonsmart meters, saying it is only fair to the remainder of the co-op members, even though the cost would only amount to 2.9 cents per day, that would not ever appear on your bill.
Yet they fail to tell you how they arrived at these figures, nor have I been able to find the filing on the Hawaii PUC database.
However, based upon past actions, some realistic assumptions can be made.
1.The cost of the employees that read the meters are included in this number. These employees currently work for the utility, and would continue to do so, even if there were no meters to read. When the smart meters were installed, no meter readers were fired, but simply placed in other positions. As such, there is no real added cost for the employees that read these meters now.
2. So, a realistic assumption is that the cost per employee, with salary, insurance, benefits, taxes, unemployment contributions, would be about $65,000 per employee. If two employees are reading meters, the cost is $ 130,000 no matter what activities they undertake.
3. Now, that leaves $210,000 in costs that they attribute to fuel and vehicles. However, the vehicles used are already purchased, licensed and the insurance paid. They are already writing off these costs, whether they are sitting on the lot or being used to read meters. So, no added cost there, with the possible exception of minor maintenance.
4. This leaves fuel, at $4.50 a gallon, on a vehicle that averages 25 miles to the gallon, they would need to drive 1.2 million miles to consume 48,800 gallon of fuel, or make approximately 34 trips around the world. Pretty hard to do on such a small island.
All over the Mainland, utilities without smart meters, with millions of customers, allow online reporting of meter readings, post card readings or use a budget billing system. On budget billing, the past monthly usage is averaged, and the same amount billed each month. At the end of the year over/under adjustments are made with an on site reading.
Yet KIUC refuses to consider these simple, inexpensive options.
It appears that the fee, in reality, is a punitive measure against those who, for whatever reason, defied the will of the board. With over 20 home photovoltaic systems being added per month, and the conservation measures that people are taking, KIUC revenues, by their own reporting, are dropping on average 2 percent a year. The remaining members will need to make up the difference, of course, in higher rates.
By CEO Bissel’s own words, time-of-day metering will be coming. You will pay an extremely high rate for prime time usage (i.e., 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. when you need it most), and a lower rate when most people are in bed. For those willing to cook dinner at 10 p.m. or do laundry at midnight, there will be savings. For the rest of us, higher bills. This is only possible with “smart meters” that track your minute by minute use. The 3,000 nonsmart meter users jeopardize this plan.
Of course, since the members of the board sign a “secrecy” agreement upon election, you will never know until they decide to do it, unilaterally, without any member input.
So, I suggest you vote no on your ballot, and take back some control of your cooperative. Let the board know who is really in control.
• Barry Dittler is a Kapaa resident.
