NTUA OKs immediate rate increase

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

FORT DEFIANCE — A 23.7 percent electric rate increase becomes effective today following the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority Management Board approval of the boost.

NTUA Interim General Manger Kenneth Craig said customers will see the increase reflected on their bills in the first part of October.

Deenise Becenti, NTUA public relations, said Friday that the management board voted unanimously to approve the increase as it was presented during seven public meetings and the final public hearing held last Friday in Window Rock.

Becenti said that out of 38,133 electric customers, 187 customers attended the public meetings and 87 attended the public hearing. Only about half of those commented, according to Craig.

The board reviewed various scenarios recommended during the meetings, including phasing in the increase over a period of time, and reducing the increase to 7 percent.

However, Craig said, “We informed the board that changing the numbers would impact the revenue requirement needed to accomplish various capital improvement and operation/maintenance projects. These are projects that we cannot and should not delay any longer.”

“Part of it is we have certain financial ratios we need to meet to keep our lenders on board, and this rate increase was planned to address everything, including meeting our financial ratios for the future,” Craig said Friday.

He said the management board did direct NTUA to address several issues which surfaced during the public meetings. “One is address the things that seemed to be a common complaint in all the meetings regarding customer service: ‘When you take my money, smile — that kind of thing.’

“Outages seemed to be in some of the forums and at the hearing, an issue ... So we’re going to design a matrix to show improvements in these areas.”

NTUA also will look at energy audits and how it can help its customers. “Those seem to be the big issues,” Craig said.

“Part of the demand-side management that we’re going to focus on is the energy audit — helping our customers understand how to manage their energy costs through little pigtail light bulbs and all kinds of stuff like that.

“You can get 60 watts of light for 14 to 20 watts of input to the bulbs. The light part of your energy bill, it can cut it by 50 percent. It doesn’t help much on washers and dryers and that kind of stuff, but we all use lights, most of the time,” he said.

NTUA customers using 500 kilowatt hours of electricity are expected to see an average monthly increase of $6.75, which includes the energy charge and the service charge. Thus, the average bill will increase from $36 to $45.75 per month, depending on the actual amount of electrical power used.

Based on 900 kilowatt hours of use, residential customers will see a 22.3 percent increase, from $59.20 to $72.39 per month, or a difference of $13.19.