At issue is a relatively new Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) order that requires utilities to hold off on disconnecting residents from services when they experience a delay in the processing of applications for assistance in paying bills.
The PUCO’s order, passed down in July, requires utilities to suspend disconnections for a 30 days after a consumer completes an application with a community action agency for bill payment help.
From June 2022 to May 2023, Dayton-area electric company AES Ohio reported a total of 25,611 service disconnections for non-payment, according to an annual report from the company to the PUCO this summer. Duke Energy, which serves Warren County and other parts of Southwestern Ohio, reported 23,059 such disconnections in the same time period.
In May 2023, AES Ohio, formerly known as Dayton Power & Light, had a total of 63,205 of residential customers in arrears by more than 60 days, its report said.
AES Ohio provides electric transmission and distribution service to more than 527,000 customers across its 6,000-square-mile service territory in west central Ohio.
PUCO Chair JeniferFrench said the new order “will help to ensure that Ohio’s most vulnerable are not disconnected from vital utility services while they seek assistance.”
Three companies — Duke, Columbia Gas of Ohio, Inc. and Dominion Energy Ohio — have asked the PUCO for a reconsideration of the issue.
The latter two companies say the PUCO’s order is unreasonable because it does not consider “the practical reality that the state’s distribution utilities do not have access to the information required to comply with the order.”
A spokesman for the PUCO said Wednesday that the companies need to demonstrate how the PUCO’s order was either unlawful or unreasonable. The commission will rule on all applications for rehearing later, he said.
If there is a rehearing process, all PUCO orders are appealable to the the Ohio Supreme Court.
“Ohio should lead with its heart to keep Ohio families connected to utility services that are essential for their daily lives,” Ohio Consumers’ Counsel Bruce Weston said in an email to this newspaper Wednesday.
The “customers we serve are struggling,” Keelie Gustin, chief policy officer with Miami Valley Community Action Partnership, testified to the PUCO in February this year. “They are exhausted. They are overwhelmed and have little place to turn. Mothers and fathers worried about keeping their homes, paying their utility bills to cook their family a meal and provide light for their children to complete their homework.”
“In Dayton, there is an ever-increasing need for assistance with utility bills, and the delays resulting from that increasing need can be extremely harmful to those who apply,” for assistance, Toledo attorney David Manor, who works with ABLE, said Wednesday. “PUCO previously agreed in their first ruling on this issue that these protections are needed and that they are important to the continued protection of utility consumers.”
Advocates for delays in service cut-offs say delays will not prevent utilities from continuing to bill nor would it prevent any efforts to collect funds.
In general, the OCC advises consumers who are behind on bill payments to contact their utility company immediately to make payment arrangements.
The utility must provide residents notice of at least 14 days before disconnection, the OCC says. Notice can either be a message on a utility bill or sent separately.
Further: A utility must attempt to personally contact consumers before disconnection. If you are not at home and miss a utility’s visit, written notice must be posted by the utility in a visible location at the premises before disconnecting service.
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