While Empire District walks its rate request case through the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, the utility based in Joplin, Missouri just received approval for a similar request from the Kansas Corporation Commission.
Oklahoma’s 4,800 customers served by the utility wait on a decision that might increase their monthly rates, regulators in Kansas voted Tuesday in support of a unanimous settlement agreement that was a little more than half of what Empire District requested in its rate case filed in December, reported the Kansas Reflector. The approval followed a similar decision made by Missouri regulators but won’t take effect until early August. Oklahoma’s decision is pending as the case winds through the Corporation Commission’s system.
As a result of the approval of the $8.775 million base rate increase, Kansas residential customers will see their average bills go up by nearly $28 a month over the next two years. The company asked for a $15.8 million increase in December but it prompted KCC chairman Andrew French to ask the KCC staff to “think creatively” to help lower the impact on Empire customers.
The Reflector reported that French and commissioners Dwight Keen and Annie Kuether raised concerns about inflicting such a large increase on consumers at their Tuesday business meeting. Kuether asked the company to consider installment plans for payments, which it doesn’t currently offer.
“Had this dose been spread over a different time period, it’s possible that the same result would have been obtained with a lesser amount of pain,” Keen said.
He said he is concerned about the need for an additional rate case in the near future and effects on the company’s small customer base in Kansas.
“This is an economically challenged part of the state,” Keen said, referring to about 8,400 residential customers and nearly 1,350 commercial and industrial customers that Empire District serves in southeast Kansas, primarily in Cherokee County.
The Empire District Electric Co., which operates as Liberty, serves more than 8,400 Kansas residential customers, as well as nearly 1,350 commercial and industrial customers.
