HomeMy WebLinkAbout20020815min.docMINUTES OF DECISION MEETING
AUGUST 15, 2002 – 1:30 P.M.
In attendance were Commissioners Paul Kjellander, Marsha Smith, and Dennis Hansen.
Commissioner Kjellander called the meeting to order. The first order of business was approval of items 1-4 on the CONSENT AGENDA. There were no comments or questions. Commissioner Kjellander moved for approval of the Consent Agenda. A vote was taken and the motion carried.
The next order of business was MATTERS IN PROGRESS:
Birdelle Brown’s August 13, 2002 Decision Memorandum re: Idaho Universal Service Fund – 2002 Annual Report.
Ms. Brown reviewed her Decision Memo. Commissioner Hansen asked if it wasn’t just a year or two ago that we raised the USF charge from $.08 up to $.10. Ms. Brown replied that the Commission did raise the rate a couple of years ago because there were some significant disbursements from the fund, which are no longer required. She said the most significant was the $300,000 going to Fremont, but that was to be paid over a short period of time and that has been paid, and it no longer drains the fund. She said there hasn’t been any new activity since then except for Rural Telephone Company, which implemented its EAS about a year ago, but that program does not put a real significant drain on the fund, allowing us to go back to the levels in the fund before Fremont’s draw.
Commissioner Smith said she was trying to understand the access rate. She asked if the three companies listed would have access rates that comply with the Commission’s rules if they corrected either their reporting or other problems. Ms. Brown replied that two of the companies, ATC and Inland, need to make a correction to their reports in order to bring them into compliance. She said there haven’t been any significant changes to their operations and no reasons for the access rates to increase. Commissioner Smith asked if perhaps the increases indicated there had been a substantial increase in calling. Ms. Brown replied that could be the case, but she couldn’t give any specific details until she contacted the companies, and the ones who had reported back have found they had reported the wrong billing and collection revenues or the wrong minutes. She said in one case, a company had reported both intra- and interstate minutes instead of just intrastate. She stated that Rural Telephone’s report had come in significantly under the statewide average access rate. She said Rural has had a recent rate case as well as the EAS implementation and the adjustment of their access rates, and when that happened, the Commission significantly reduced the billing and collection revenue because of the implementation of EAS. She said she would not expect these factors to change rates, however, and she thought the Commission needed to give it another year to see if it stabilizes. She said if it turns out there is something significantly wrong before the year is up, Staff would bring it to the Commission before that.
Commissioner Smith made a motion to approve Staff’s recommendation with the understanding that if Staff finds some significant anomaly in the access revenues, it will come to the Commission before next year’s report. There was no further discussion. A vote was taken on the motion and it carried unanimously.
The next order of business was RULEMAKING:
Bev Barker’s August 13, 2002 Decision Memorandum re: Proposed Revisions of the Utility Customer Relations Rules (IDAPA 31.21.01000 Et Seq.).
Ms. Barker stated that Staff has been meeting with energy utilities to talk about possible changes to Commission rules. She said it was Staff’s understanding that the Commission was concerned about the potential of a broad rulemaking for this year, so what she did was focus on those rules that they had talked about in the meeting where she thought the utilities and Staff had reached a consensus and where the implications for customers was minimal in terms of deposit amounts or increasing the circumstances under which customers might be disconnected. She said that was the guiding light in terms of preparing her Decision Memo. She then reviewed her Decision Memo outlining the three rules Staff is proposing to actually issue a rulemaking on. Ms. Barker said there is potential with Rule 101 that there might be some additional changes that could be added if the Commission is willing to consider actually adding additional grounds in which an existing customer could be asked for a deposit.
Commissioner Hansen asked what is meant by Staff’s statement that the Commission initiate a rulemaking proceeding. He questioned if that will mean everybody will be given an opportunity to review the proposed rule changes and make comments or if that means we will proceed to the Legislature to get the rules implemented. Ms. Barker explained that what the Commission would do under Staff’s proposal would be to initiate a case in which all interested parties, including the utilities, would have an opportunity to comment on the proposed rule changes and make whatever suggestions or comments they want to make, and then it would be brought back to the Commission for it to decide what it wants to do. She said at that point, if the Commission decides it wants to change the rules, it would actually go before the Legislature for review. She said there could not be any rule changes effective until after the end of the legislative session. She said the Commission is obligated to have the proposed rule changes published through the Administrative Rules Coordinator’s office so they go out to the broad public for an opportunity to comment.
Commissioner Hansen asked if the rule provision requiring customers to pass an objective credit screen has always been in place. Ms. Barker replied that telephone companies have had that rule for some time, but other utilities haven’t. She said the energy utilities haven’t been particularly interested in doing credit screening in the past, and they have now indicated they are willing to do it, but the rules need to be changed to allow them to do it. Commissioner Hansen asked if passing an objective credit screen involves using commercial credit records. Ms. Barker replied that it could include using commercial credit records or it could be a credit screen developed by the utility company to assess risk. She said the larger telecommunications companies use commercial credit screening and go to one of the three credit rating agencies to get credit information on customers they don’t know, but the smaller companies have a credit screen they use that takes into account information like how long you have been in your home, are you employed, etc., and then they score people based on that mechanism. Commissioner Hansen asked her if she saw credit screening being employed uniformly across the utilities we regulate or if each company could develop its own. Ms. Barker said that with these rules, each company could develop its own or use the commercial credit screening, which the larger utilities have considered.
Commissioner Smith noted that the Commission had received a letter from Intermountain Gas that had additional suggestions for changes in the Customer Relations Rules. She asked if the Commission should include the proposed changes made by Intermountain Gas now, rather than wait another year before they can be considered. She asked what the other Commissioners thought about including the suggestions of Intermountain Gas and getting comments on them.
Commissioner Kjellander stated he didn’t have a problem discussing the suggestions by Intermountain Gas based on the realities of the lengthy rulemaking process.
Commissioner Hansen asked if they were proposing putting the suggestions on the fast track and making them part of the proposed rules so they can be submitted this year. Commissioner Smith said her understanding of the rulemaking process is that if we haven’t gotten them to the Rules Coordinator by next week, it will be another year before they can be considered because of the schedule involved, so in her mind, it’s not a fast track. She said if we want to get comments on any of the suggestions, we should just include them, publish them, and get comments on everything, and then when the comments are back, we can decide what we like and what we don’t like. She said she thought their suggestion in Rule 302.9, which deals with finding out who people co-habit with, is not what she would consider proposing. She said she also thought that staff gets at the same thing in Rule 101, where if an applicant requests service at a residence where a prior customer still resides and where any balance for service to that prior customer is past due and owing, then that is a reason to collect a deposit. She said that gets at the same problem in a less intrusive manner. She said for these reasons, she didn’t think we should include this suggested rule, but the other rules we should get comment on.
Regarding Intermountain Gas’ proposal to change the prohibition of termination from 12:00 noon on Friday to 4:00 p.m., she said the Commission had a good reason to set the time at noon because it didn’t want customers being disconnected late on a Friday afternoon when they would not have the opportunity to contact the Commission. She said she would be opposed to changing the time to 4:00 p.m.; however, 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. might be acceptable.
Commissioner Kjellander stated that regarding the co-habitation issue, he was in favor of what staff has proposed and would have trouble putting the company’s proposed rule out for comment. He said with the other proposed changes, since the Commission is just looking for comment and can change things later, he had no problems getting comments on them.
Commissioner Hansen said the Commission should definitely get the comments. He stated that allowing companies to use the commercial credit review could pose problems, because it is his understanding that when people have three credit checks in a 30 or 60-day period of time, their credit rating goes down. He said these are things that have to be addressed in the review and public comment before we proceed to the Legislature.
Commissioner Smith said that regarding the staff-proposed Rule 101 D, before it is published, we need to look at the sentence structure and rearrange it to make it clearer.
Commissioner Kjellander asked if there are any direct conflicts with what Intermountain Gas has proposed and what is already in the Commission’s set of proposed rules. Ms. Barker replied that the Company’s proposal in Rule 101 is trying to get at introducing a measure for determining how many late payments would actually constitute a credit risk and therefore trigger a request for a deposit. She said Rule 105 was discussed in their meetings and staff is comfortable going forward with it. She said staff would be opposed to the Company’s proposal in Rule 302 and Rule 310. She said Rule 311 was also discussed in the meetings and concern was expressed about what impact it would have on people’s ability to reach the Commission and/or the Company, but the Companies felt strongly about wanting to extend the disconnection period. She said if the rule is opened for comment, Staff would want to propose some changes to the other sections as well that have to do with clarifying the Commission’s policy.
Don Howell said it is unclear whether the Staff is proposing to open what we would normally refer to as a PUC-initiated rulemaking, where we would promulgate the rules, give them a generic rule number, send them out to 800 utilities for comments, and then the comments would be brought to the Commission for decision. He said at that point, we would then begin the formal legislative rulemaking process under the Administrative Procedures Act. He said if it is the staff’s or Commission’s intent that they want rules to be reviewed by the 2003 Legislature, then we must submit our proposed rules that are being put out for final public comment no later than next Thursday. He said that means we need to know exactly how the rules need to read.
Commissioner Kjellander said that some of the changes proposed by Intermountain Gas could create a domino effect as far as impacting some of the sections in the other rules that aren’t even on the table today.
Commissioner Smith said she thought we were doing the latter, because she didn’t think it was necessary to take another 18 months to look at this some more, and she proposed that we take what the staff proposed in the Decision Memo, add to it the suggestions from 101.01 after Bev and the Company have remodeled the words, before next Thursday, and also add to it Rule 105, with the proposed sentence addition. She said that with Rule 311, she was not opposed to going ahead with a time change to 2:00 p.m., allowing the staff until next Thursday to see if the three other sections would be impacted so they could be included for comment, also.
Commissioner Hansen said he didn’t see why it was urgent and why we have to go that route, and he thought we should follow normal procedures. He stated that at this late date, he couldn’t feel good about trying to get the changes in this year, and he was concerned about giving everyone the opportunity to comment.
Commissioner Smith said she wanted to point out that there has been a working group consisting of utilities and staff that has been meeting since last February, and there is no disagreement. She said in her mind, at least that many of the rules have already been through the workshop and negotiated rulemaking process, and she couldn’t see that giving them any more time is needed.
Commissioner Kjellander said he didn’t have a problem allowing the other rules to go out for comment because they aren’t new issues, and they have been discussed by the group for some time. He said this would give some final analysis and the Commission could still deny any part of it when it comes back. He said he didn’t have a problem with the motion Commissioner Smith might be making.
Commissioner Smith said she would make what she previously outlined into a motion—the staff memo plus three other rules, not including 302 and 310. She said she would also propose a 2:00 p.m. time deadline for disconnections on Friday afternoons.
A vote was taken on the motion and it carried, with Commissioner Hansen casting a dissenting vote.
Commissioner Kjellander stated that the only matters remaining on the Agenda were under Fully Submitted Matters and they would be deliberated privately. He then adjourned the meeting.
DATED this ______ day of August, 2002.
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COMMISSION SECRETARY
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