The city council voted 5-4 vote this morning to raise electric rates 13.8 percent over the next two years.
Four council members voted to support a lower, one-year rate increase of 7.9 percent—Bruce Harrell, Jan Drago, Richard McIver and Tom Rasmussen. Those four also opposed the higher, two-year increase. As we reported earlier this month, the lower increase would probably have hurt City Light’s bond rating, which would in turn have impacted the interest rates at which the utility (and potentially the rest of the city) could borrow money. In a statement, Harrell expressed his disappointment at the vote, which was a strong rebuke of the energy committee chair’s position on the rate increase issue.
This morning’s vote was part of the council’s annual budget revising process. The rest of the revised budget (technically: the “balancing package”) has a little something for everyone.
• It restores proposed cuts to human services, including Communities United Rainier Beach (CURB), Get Off the Streets (GOTS), and Court Specialized Treatment and Access to Recovery Services (CO-STARS), that provide services for people at risk for low-level street crime. However, it also includes an “evaluation” of the programs that some supporters worry might actually pave the way to eliminate CURB’s funding and distribute it among the other two programs.
• It includes two top priorities of council member Tim Burgess: A new safe house for prostituted young girls, and the Drug Market Initiative, which lets small-time dealers off the hook if they agree to stay off the streets and gives dealers access to social services.
• It restores money for women’s shelters and day centers such as the downtown Seattle Angeline’s Day Center and for “tenant improvements” at Mary’s Place, the city’s only day shelter for women and children. I have a call in to Mary’s Place board member JJ McKay to find out if the money will be enough to keep Mary’s Place—which earlier this year was threatened with closure—afloat.
• It adds nine new parking enforcement officers, and increases parking fines by $2 across the board.
• It eliminates two park rangers that Nickels had proposed adding next year.
• It adds about $5 million back to the city’s rainy day fund, which Nickels’ proposed budget would have more or less emptied.
• And it cuts nearly $900,000 from the mayor’s office and from the Office of Policy and Management, which—as we reported last week—the city council has proposed abolishing completely. Nickels has already started transferring key employees out of OPM and into city departments; according to one report, the office looks like “a ghost town.”
The council will spend the next week crunching the numbers and making sure they add up, and will pass the final budget on November 23.
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Even with a 13.8% bump, our electric rates are really, really low.
Our electric rates may be low now indeed but an increase that size is still going to hurt quite a few of us.
Fascinating. I wonder what rainy day they’re planning for?
Our electric rates are low if you can pay them. Less people are donating a little extra to City Light’s program to help low-income electric ratepayers. Poor renters often live in apartments with electric baseboard heaters. They’re cold, and the rate increase isn’t going to warm them up.
@2: what’s your electric bill run? Even if it’s $100/month (rare in Seattle) that’s just under $14 a month.
Even compared to other Washington utilities Seattle City Light rates are very low (check what PSE customers are paying) compared to the rest of the country the are a downright steal.
seriously. @2 if this increase is make-or-break for you, then why waste the KW/h’s making ineffectual anonymous online comments?
The rates will hurt people with houses or those who for whatever reason need to burn a bunch of electricity. It won’t hurt people like me who rent single-occupant apartments and don’t use their heater. My $24 bill becomes a $27 bill, which I think I can live with. Someone’s $100-150 bill in a house, however, becomes a $114-171 bill, and so on up the chain… and if money’s very tight for such a family (plus they don’t fall into that low-income category that makes them eligible for assistance… hell, even if they do if the system’s overrun), that could make a difference.
How many parking enforcement officers the city currently employed? How much extra monthly revenue is another officer is projected to provide (please subtract their salary/HR costs/etc)? What is the most efficient number of enforcement officers (for example will the 50th only provided a 5% increase)?
Could we put a dent in downtown homelessness and increase revenue by switching to a bounty system for parking violation. Hand out scanners for reading the stubs for whoever wants one and offer a reward for each violator found.
And that doesn’t even get into the impact it will have on local businesses, many of which have very thin margins, use far more power on a daily basis and have little recourse for conserving or cutting down on usage to offset the 13.8% increase. Don’t be surprised if the price of things you take for granted goes up or if favorite businesses of yours go under entirely once this is rolled out.
The rate increase was a question of “pay me now or pay me later” and given the neglect of needed maintenance at cash-strapped City light, it was really “pay me later a lot more”
City Light rates are one of the lowest — if not the lowest — in the country. It was time to stop pretending that we can get things for free.
ECB you write that Council restored funding for homeless womens’ shelter and day services and tenant improvements for Mary’s Place. This money was not a restoration of proposed cuts. $100K for services is new city $ and the $50K for Mary’s Place tenant improvements is new $ as well.
Maintenance neglect by the City is a whole other issue. They’ve spent decades letting a whole lot of aging infrastructure slide while focusing their money on new projects and more new projects and more new programs. Maintenance neglect is an issue of general resource neglect in the name of a somewhat blindly quixotic M.O. by the City.
Having just moved to this area, I can say that my electric bill for two months here is 1/5th what an average bill would be for just one month where I came from.
There’s no reason this increase should break the bank for you unless you’re already using way too much electricity.
And calling our rates ‘free’ is ridiculous. Lower than average, yes, but we still get a regular bill for well above $0.00. Try not to exaggerate TOO much. Keep in mind most people and businesses operate on tight budgets, and while 113.8% of x isn’t a budget buster for many of us, it still is for some, and not necessarily just the destitute or irresponsible.
It is ridiculous to pretend that we can get things like maintenance for free — just as ridiculous as it is to pretend that I said our rates were zero.
It’s also ridiculous to always address a shortfall by raising consumer rates without taking real steps to utilize your existing financial resources better.
Sound ridiculous, scotto? So do your last two comments. I see what you’re saying, but there’s a far more constructive to say it than you have.
It’s true that the lower increase had the possibility of harming the utility’s bond rating, but it is no guarantee that it will not decrease still. I cannot believe that Licata (who has always stood up for the disadvantaged)and the the other 4 voted for this huge increase in this economic climate. This will be hard for people to take. City Light should feel the pain just like everyone else. I guess when city council says that it is “putting people first” is a slogan and not much else. Hat’s off to Rasmussen, Harrell, Drago and McIver for advocating for a more reasonable approach.
G: Could you give us some detail about the steps you believe would solve the financial shortfall without causing further problems? Please use real numbers.
It wouldn’t hurt for you to also seriously address the other points brought up in this thread.
@14: “There’s no reason this increase should break the bank for you unless you’re already using way too much electricity.”
I understand that other areas are much higher. However, we have quite a few very low-income folks living here (pretty much ignored by mainstream media, now that the P-I isn’t a daily paper). The increase could indeed hurt them. You don’t really know and shouldn’t assume what breaks the bank for other people.
Okay, scotto. 12. 46. 13.765. Pi. Also, e.
Honestly, given you came into this thread attacking critics of the hike with fallacious, exaggerated generalities, I’m not sure you’re in any position to call anyone out for details.
How businesses and struggling consumers hit hard by a recession and stretched to their limits will handle a 13.8% power rate hike is a serious issue, and dismissing that legitimate problem with a ‘nothing is free, bitches’ sort of attacks is more myopic and closed-minded than insightful.
Please tell us how much you would cut. Where. And why that won’t cause problems.
A convincing argument would have to include an analysis of how City Light’s rates and expenses compare to those of other utilities.
A few things to keep in mind:
* The rate increase amounts to less than a one cent increase in the current kilowatt hour charge. Kilowatt usage is totally within the control of the account holder.
* The estimated $3.00 additional charge is based on a single family home, not an apartment. Apartment residents – particularly those with central building heating – will likely not even notice this increase.
* Low income people are already eligible for a 50% discount on electrical. This rate has absolutely nothing to do with the fund for people who can’t afford to pay their bills.
* Commercial rates are lower than residential rates. Therefore, “struggling businesses” will be less impacted than residential customers.
* Rates have not been changed since about 2002 (at which point they were actually lowered), because the Nickels administration didn’t want a rate increase held against them – one of the many reasons that SCL and SPU should be distanced from the Mayor and Council’s office, and placed under the jurisdiction of a separate utilities commission.
Why add parking enforcement officers when our new mayor will be banning cars and insisting on public transportation or bikes as the only approved method of travel. Seems like a waste of money and more polution.
Not if the parking enforcement officers are heavily armed and given tanks. Can’t you just see them rolling over cars, and opening fire on motorists?
We’ll get everyone on a bike yet!
22. Again, as someone who entered this thread spewing garbage, you’re in no position to ask questions, especially when the questions involve internal accounting records that you know neither of us have any access to.
A convincing argument would also have to involve the average current expense of consumers relative not to others in the country, but to other expenses that said citizens have to pay. While opwer rates are lower for locals, some other rates (parking, rent, fuel, consumer goods, taxes, etc) are higher than the national average. You can’t argue about the power rates relative to the rest of the nation in a vacuum. Well, actually, you can, but that would be short-sighted.
#7 “Make or break”? Learn to read rather than make asinine attacks. I said hurt not break dumbshit. You ever heard of starbucks? I’ll make it work anyhow because I am not a pussy like you.
#5 14 is about an hours work for me and since, given the economy, I’m not working full-time anymore – it does hurt. Only working about 120 hours this month. Yet I don’t qualify for low-income assistance and won’t for awhile. Electric heaters in the winter suck you dry.
Thank for information.