Flipping off the power switch on the poor

The lights and gas will stay on for now, despite concerted efforts by your local public utility company.

In July, the state’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) received requests from Eversource and Avangrid that the companies be allowed to resume shutting off power for customers who had fallen behind in their bills. (Avangrid is the parent company of United Illuminated, Connecticut Natural Gas, and Southern Connecticut Gas.)

The pandemic has laid bare just how close to the bone live some Connecticut residents. In May 2020, Connecticut’s unemployment rate rose above 11 percent. In March 2020, the state imposed a moratorium on the termination of utility services as part of the state’s safety net, which was woven quickly as Connecticut began to count its COVID dead.

Most of the state suffered in some way, though I’m not sure we should include utility companies in that list. Utility companies thrived even amid COVID. In fact, Eversource reported nearly $9.86 billion in total operating revenues for 2021, a nearly 11 percent increase from 2020. By comparison, Avangrid’s total revenue for 2021 was $6.97 billion, up a little more than 10 percent from the previous year. Figures like that make it difficult to feel sorry for the companies that — amazingly — managed to increase earnings while the rest of the state floundered.

Eversource’s and Avangrid’s bid to start shutting off the lights this month was so off-putting that PURA gave the companies a bit of a spanking for asking to start termination proceedings so close to the state-regulated moratorium for cutting off power, which starts Nov. 1 and ends May 1. Doing so, according to the PURA ruling, might be considered “indicative of inefficient and imprudent management.” If that is the case, the ruling said PURA would consider “what the ramifications might be for” Avangrid and Eversource when the corporations try to recover “costs associated with this shut-off moratorium.”

Indeed.

According to PURA’s response to the requests, as of July, Eversource had roughly 23,000 customers who are eligible for termination of services; Avangrid had a little more than 2,000 such customers. Both figures included customers with serious medical conditions, for whom a loss of power could be disastrous.

Answering the behemoth companies’ request to start flipping the switch on the poor and the sick, PURA ruled that neither company had complied with the protocol necessary to start terminations, and that neither company — and this is an ongoing problem — had properly communicated to their customers the multiple options they have to pay their bills after they’ve gone into arrears. In fact, PURA called their requests to start turning off power “illogical,” and gave both companies a deadline of February 2023 to submit a plan for communicating with customers who are in arrears. The state recently fined Avangrid $3 million for not properly informing vulnerable customers about their options. That’s not just couch change, but $2.7 million of that went right back to Avangrid to pay those overdue bills. The rest was divided up between advocacy organizations such as Center for Children’s Advocacy, where Bonnie Roswig has become an expert on state utilities. The Avangrid shame money — a small percentage of what the company claims to spend on customer communication — will allow the nonprofits to spread the word about payment programs, because neither fines nor hounding the companies have had much of an effect.

For example, Roswig’s organization has suggested utility companies call tardy customers directly. The companies responded that customers would be wary about talking to a company representative out of a fear they might be victims of telephone fraud.

Yet when the utility companies turn those late bills over to a collection agency, how do those bill collectors contact customers in arrears?

They call them. On the phone. Programs that help with utility bills are more accessible and easier to apply for than, say, the SNAP program (food stamps), says Roswig. The standard eligibility cut-off for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (which provides money for back heating bills) is no more than 60 percent of Connecticut’s median income, depending on family size. In fact, on multiple occasions PURA has told the companies to advise customers about this assistance if the customer mentions an inability to pay. They shouldn’t even have to ask.

“We are talking about working people who should be getting assistance, the newly financially challenged because of the pandemic, people who never had these issues before,” said Roswig, “They should be learning about these programs and accessing these programs.”