GALION, Ohio—A group of Galion residents—former city council president Don Faulds, former city law director Roberta Wade and John Smella—believe that the city’s electric bill overcharges add up to $4 million, but Mayor Tom O’Leary said that’s not the case; rather, the overcharges are about $230,000.
Faulds, Wade and Smella think that city electric customers were overcharged approximately $4 million from 2009 to 2012, based on financial information they received from the city. They discussed this claim in further detail during a town hall meeting Tuesday at the Galion Public Library.
Wade said they began their research after she was asked by a Galion resident in October of 2013 if the city’s electric rates hadn’t changed over the past several years. Wade told the citizen that the power cost adjustment (PCA) is supposed to fluctuate with the cost of power, according to the Electric Rate Ordinance No. 2005-37.
However, “When I pulled the ordinance out and put it beside their utility bill, that’s exactly when we discovered that this was not being done,” she said. “The power cost adjustment was set at .02 in September 2009 and it stayed at .02.”
“Clearly, that power cost adjustment was arbitrarily set at two cents a kilowatt designed to overcharge and increase the fund balance,” she commented.
O’Leary on Friday didn’t deny that the PCA has remained at .02 since 2009; however, he said, “The city went back to the start of this PCA ordinance in 2005 and calculated the numbers in each sixth month interval to see whether there was a variance or not in what was charged. When we did those calculations, we showed the media at a press conference what each sixth month cost was.
“And contrary to what the referendum folks are saying, there were only two quarters, two sixth month intervals rather, in 2007 where the actual charge was higher than the calculated charge.”
“We can show you each sixth month interval since ’05, the formula, how we ran the numbers and why we believe this is the calculated PCA…So this idea that people were overcharged during that period, there’s no data to base that,” he said.
Wade pointed out that from 2009-2012, the electric fund balance grew from approximately $3.5 million to about $7.5 million, which is $4 million over the $3.5 million balance the city’s rate structure was designed to have, she said.
O’Leary said that this increase in the fund balance was not because of electric bill overcharges. “Most of the difference has to do with under-spending by the city,” he said.
O’Leary said the overcharges are about $230,000. “If council wanted to come up with a decision to go ahead and refund these overcharged amounts, we would work to get it down,” he said.
While overbilling city residents is Wade, Smella and Faulds’ main concern, they are also concerned about the way in which their public records requests have been handled. Wade commented, “The city has not acted in good faith in our public records requests.” She said they’ve asked to see the city’s PCA calculations and were denied documentation.
And yet, O’Leary said they have been trying to value their requests; however, they take hours to respond to. “One of the most recent ones is they want every financial record of the City of Galion from 2005 to present. So then they can go to a meeting and say that they don’t get all their public records requests on time,” he said.
Wade said she intends to hold a press conference in the near future, during which she will present three ballot issue proposals for the November election. She said she doesn’t want to announce exactly what the issues are until the press conference.
