ADDRESSING FY 2024 ELECTRICAL COST

The past FY was a taxing year for us all.  The cost to purchase power was up for both the city and citizens. However the city had been fighting that fight long before any changes were made last year. Since 2005 until the  first quarter of 2010 there had not been a price increase like what was experienced.   Can it happen again?  According history, Yes   Can we be better prepared for such an instance?  Yes   Is the City of San Augustine working to put something in place? Yes  Line loss was terrible, we are working on that problem to improve that. To add to that the City was seeing an increase on supplies for all departments across the board that started toward the end of FY 2021.  The city made no changes to pass those cost on to the customers until it was absolutely necessary. 

Last year the customer was charged .1196 for the purchase of power. Everyone that pointed out that the PCA was more than the electrical cost was absolutely correct. There was no Power Cost added to the City's rates!  The city had NO rate added to our city rate to offset what had to be paid to East Texas Electric Coop via DETEC. When I polled other cities and the COOP a rate for Power Cost is added to their rates. So I listened to what the poll determined and to what was being said and made some more changes this year.   We now do have a standard Power Cost Rate.  THE PCA for no city or coop is what is actually being paid by said company for power they are purchasing other than what you saw on last year's bills for the CITY OF SAN AUGUSTINE. 

The Electrical Department has in the past assisted the water and wastewater with their budgets.  As life changes so has the need for electricity, therefore households are using more electricity.  So yes water and wastewater rates were increased this FY this allowed the City Customer Charge added to the electrical cost to be decreased from .03 to .015.

No the City is not hiding anything. No what we pay for power purchased did not decrease from .1196 to .036.  Only the rate structure changed. The City will pay .0825 for every kWh that was sold for the October 1 Billing.  If you are doing the math, yes that is actually 8.85 cents. The difference of .006 will be set aside to help the city be prepared for extra high price increases in the future. It was budgeted for citizens to see a decrease in the electric cost of at least .0421 per kWh.  It decreased by .0425 this month.  

Attached is also a document that goes over what was said here and mentions some things that were not.