News
Residents Evaluate Fire Damage

Fire Camp Is Its Own Little Village

Red Cross Coordinating Aid for Fire Victims

Say Bye To Bella Vista Eyesore

Newborn Filly Recovering After Attack

Defense: Sobriety Tests Fumbled

Death Penalty Showdown

Deputy May Have Taken Evidence

A Beeline From the Trigo Fire

Business Owners Had Had Enough

More
News

HOME	CLASSIFIEDS	OBITUARIES	SPORTS	OPINION

Thursday, February 14, 2008

CNME Chief Calls PRC Investigations Unfair

By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
    John Wheeler, CEO and General Manager of Central New Mexico Electric Cooperative, said the investigative process begun by the Public Regulation Commission is unfair and costly to the members of the co-op, and his only mistake is giving a refund to five customers.
    The PRC has issued two orders regarding CNME. One order suspends a new rate structure that would have allowed fewer hours of off-peak rates. The second order calls for two investigations into the way CNME has set its rates.
    The first PRC order is a suspension of Advice Notice 55 concerning CNME's Rate 25, a planned reduction in off-peak hours.
    According to state laws, rates proposed by a cooperative must be filed with the PRC in the form of an advice notice.
    The second order begins an investigation into Advice Notice 54, a proposal by CNME to cancel Rate 29, a commercial time-of-use rate, and a second investigation into Rate 25, a residential time-of-use rate.
    Wheeler said that the PRC investigation will unfairly cost CNME and its customers who could lose up to $120,000 annually because the company was not allowed to reduce its off-peak hours.
    The good news, Wheeler said, is that money would be absorbed by the margins.
    "Left over" money by a not-for-profit like CNME is called a margin and is supposed to be allocated back to members "in the form of capital credits," Wheeler said.
    The last time CNME sent out checks as capital credits was in 1991, Wheeler said.
    Jim Van Someren, company spokesman for Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association of Colorado, the power supplier for CNME, said that Tri-State also returns margins to its 44 member co-ops.
    "If we have margins above the cost to generate and deliver power, then we return those additional monies to the co-ops," Van Someren said.
    According to Van Someren CNME got money just "last week" from Tri-State but Van Someren was unable to say exactly how much.
    "Over the last 13 years we've averaged about $5 million a year to all 44 co-ops," Van Someren said.
    CNME has received capital credits from Tri-State for 13 years, Van Someren said.
    "He is mistaken," Wheeler said about Van Someren's claim.
    In a merger agreement between Plains Electric and CNME in 2000 CNME "gave up all the capital credits" that it had accrued, Wheeler said.
    Not until February 2009 will Tri-State "allocate margins" to any co-ops in New Mexico including CNME, Wheeler said.
    Wheeler said he does not believe that the result of the PRC investigation will result in any refunds to customers— but there are five customers who might have to refund money back to CNME.
    The refunds happened when Denny Snyder, an Edgewood resident, protested a 2005 rate increase applied to electric thermal storage unit owners raising their off-peak rate by 46.7 percent. According to a letter Snyder sent to Wheeler in January, up to 60 customers attended the two public meetings held by CNME but "nothing was changed" by the co-op.
    After repeated protests Snyder and his four neighbors each received "a number of (refund) checks, ranging from $500 to about $1,000 in total" from CNME, he said.
    But Wheeler said that those several customers had been "undercharged" because of a CNME rate adjustment.
    "I wouldn't be surprised however if (the PRC) asked us to have those customers give their rebates back because all five of them would now owe the co-op money," Wheeler said.