PSC extends utility cutoff moratorium
Now reaches to Nov. 1, when winter rule applies
The Public Service Commission voted to extend the current moratorium on disconnecting the service of utility customers who are behind on their bills to Nov. 1, when the annual moratorium on cutoffs for electric and gas customers takes effect.
The annual winter moratorium runs to April 15.
The moratorium on cutoffs for customers of the state’s 578 water utilities would end on Nov. 1. But the PSC will require any water utility to get approval from the commission on its plan to disconnect customers service.
The moratorium was put in place on March 24 in response to the coronavirus pandemic and was set to expire on Oct. 1.
About 20 organizations across the state, ranging from the Wisconsin Council of Churches to the Sierra Club, asked the PSC to extend the moratorium.
The commission extended the moratorium by a 2-1 vote, with Rebecca Cameron Valcq, PSC chairwoman, and Commissioner Tyler Huebner voting in favor. PSC Commissioner Ellen Nowak voted against the extension.
“The three of us really are really in this kind of unenviable position of trying to strike the perfect balance between public safety and the continued financial health of our utility companies,” Valcq said. “From the smallest municipal water utility to the largest investor-owned utility, we are trying to strike this balance, and it is hard.”
The federal government has extended a moratorium on evictions, Valcq said, and the number of COVID-19 cases has increased.
Of the 154 utilities that provides information to the PSC, 39, including Madison Gas & Electric, did not plan to disconnect customers’ service even if the moratorium was not extended.
As of August, an estimated 54,051 residential customers of the utilities that provided information would have been at risk of having their service disconnected were it not for the moratorium. They included:
43,572 customers of 36 electric utilities.
10,079 customers of 47 water utilities. 400 residential customers of three natural gas utilities. (Some utilities were not able to separate electric and gas customers.)
The estimates include 27,461 customers of We Energies.
The state’s five largest investorowned utilities reported that customers were in arrears for a total of $235.7 million in August, compared with a total of $184.3 million in April 2019.
The commission’s concern is how customers behind on their bill eventually will be able to get caught up and whether the cost of bad debts would be passed onto other customers.
“I am not naïve that the arrears balance is going to go away,” Valcq said. That is among Nowak’s concerns. “It is just problems we are pushing down the road,” she said.
Nowak said she would support a targeted approach as opposed to a broad moratorium.
The commission voted to require utilities to provide information on what they are doing to reach customers who are behind on their bills and on the potential effect on customers’ rates.
Utilities in every state are facing the same problem, Huebner said.