Kent Kammerer at Crosscut writes about Seattle's government-owned electric utility following an 18% rate increase imposed by the City Council: "City Light audit: Are rate games being played?"
The city cooks the books and bills City Light for expenses that would normally come from the general fund. City Light must then recover that cost from ratepayers. The practice, in essence, uses the City Light utility as a taxing system. You aren't paying just for your power you are paying for overhead from other city government expenses that should be operating within their revenue budgeted from the general fund. The accounting sleight of hand makes city spending look better.Although Seattle's electric rates are relatively low thanks to geography and hydroelectric power, they're still higher than they need to be, and double-digit rate hikes won't help.
And now some well-paid superfluous City Light managers, threatened with job cuts, are forming a union. Good luck cutting the fat now.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at March 20, 2010 03:20 PM | Email ThisNot that anyone really cares; it is all rich people's money anyway,right?
Posted by: iconoclast on March 20, 2010 05:56 PMWhy should Seattle rates be cheaper because we happen to live a few hundred miles from hydro-power?
Utilities are welded together into a free market to buy and sell electricity. If its better to sell the electricity to customers who are willing to pay more, then so be it.
To do anything else is Communism with a Capital C.
You're kidding me right? The last 20 years have seen the complete integration of our electric grid and more importantly electricity can be bought and sold on the spot market. The electricity doesn't have to be "transporter" necessarily. As long as I can buy it from one place, I can essentially use it at that price elsewhere.
Right now Washington State would make more money if it exported electricity rather than let a bunch of freeloading hippies use it for next to nothing.