In a work session briefing, Austin council members were told the base rate needs to go from $10 to $25.
"Our cash reserves are dwindling because of our base rates that are outdated relative to the consumption patterns we're seeing in our community," said AE Spokesperson Mat Mitchell."It's it is a lot of money. There's no minimizing that. And at the same time, we're seeing the cost of providing electricity to our customers and to our ratepayers go up, infrastructure costs, reliability cost, substation costs, labor costs.
"It would have been nice to have had these discussions during our budget talks this year. That way we could, as a council, seen the whole picture of what was going on as far as Austin Energy potentially raising their rates. And then also what we could have cut in our own budget in the general fund," said Council member McKenzie Kelly District 6.
"It makes me sick to my stomach to know that there are people who are struggling every day in our community that are going to be charged more for electricity," said Kelly. "We're victims of our own success. Basically, the conservation that we're seeing, and Austin Energy continues to encourage is not being supported by the base rate structure, which is predicated on higher usage customers subsidizing lower usage customers. Right now, we're seeing lower usage customers being served well below their cost of service," said Mitchell.
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