One can hardly wait for the federal amendment:
AUSTIN — Texas is hoarding millions of dollars intended to help hundreds of thousands of elderly and impoverished residents pay their electric bills to survive the summer heat.
As Texas suffers through one of the most menacing heat waves in its history, the state this fiscal year has collected $130 million designated to help offset the spike in electrical use but has provided only $28 million thus far to those in need. Without the help, many Texans forgo air conditioning and risk their health.
Even with more people and more need, Texas is spending half as much as it did nearly a decade ago to help the poor and elderly survive summer. The reason: State lawmakers locked away the money to help eliminate their budget shortfall.
“When we have such extreme heat, where people’s lives are actually in danger, it’s like legal grand larceny,†said Carol Biedrzycki of the consumer and environmental group Texas Ratepayers’ Organization to Save Energy. “This is a misapplication of funds that is legal because the legislators who wanted to misapply the funds made it legal.â€
State leaders have said that until the economy recovers and lawmakers overhaul the state tax code, they have no choice but to hoard dedicated-fee money.
More than 100 people who could use that money lined up this week at North Dallas Shared Ministries. The charity offers Dallas residents utility bill assistance and other services.
Dana Certain, 41, who has been unemployed since October 2010, said she was desperate for help with her electric bill.
“I’m either not gonna be able to pay electric or not gonna pay rent,†she said.
Natasha Brocks, 37, visited the charity seeking help with her July electric bill.
Brocks, who recently started a job as a secretary at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, had been unemployed for three months. During that time, some bills piled up.
Now the mother of four has to pay late fees and try to stay current with this month’s bills.
“I’m backpedaling, trying to pay all those bills,†Brocks said.
6 million pay the fee
The money for the energy bill assistance comes from customers in certain deregulated utility markets — mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.
More than 6 million households and businesses pay the fee. It is assessed at 65 cents per 1,000 kilowatt-hours, or about $1 a month for an average residential ratepayer. It is collected as a fee attached to utility bills.
Gov. Rick Perry proposed ending the utility bill assessment four years ago because the money was largely being diverted from its stated purpose.
The governor “continues to promote truth in taxation so Texans can be assured their tax dollars are being spent on their intended purpose,†spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said.
The program, called LITE-UP Texas, began after electrical markets were deregulated in 1999.
In 2004, the state changed eligibility requirements, causing more than half of the almost 800,000 customers who had enrolled for assistance to be cut off. The state continued to collect the fee but kept more of the money to balance the budget.
Publicity slashed
Lawmakers have all but cut out spending from this pot of money on “customer education,†which was to include both awareness of the discounts and how to navigate the deregulated electricity market.
In fiscal 2002, the state spent $12 million on customer education, which paid for TV ads. But for at least the last five years, it has spent $750,000 a year, which mostly goes for a website to help educate consumers.
By the end of the next two-year budget cycle, Texas will be sitting on nearly $1 billion of unspent funds intended for utility bill discounts.
In a report released this week, state Auditor John Keel tiptoed around the huge sum. Keel criticized the Public Utility Commission for not analyzing how much fee revenue is needed — as its own rules require — when it sets the rate each year.
But the commission said the Legislature essentially dictates that the highest rate allowed be collected.
Chief Senate budget writer Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the only alternative to holding dedicated funds would have been to cut more out of education, public safety and other key programs.
“The utilities got the Legislature to say that in order to assist low-income Texans, let’s make our ratepayers pay for it,†said Ogden, who calls the benefit assessment “a rip-off†deserving of repeal.
“I’m for — when the economy improves — basically eliminating all of those funds, saying they’re not working in the way that they were intended and we don’t need them to balance the budget, so let’s get rid of them,†he said.
$150 million a year
Meanwhile, the fee and interest income generate close to $150 million a year and last year had a balance left of $608 million, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for Comptroller Susan Combs.
The fees pay for the discounts, given only in the summer months. They vary, based on a formula, but “should be more than 10 percent of their bill,†Public Utility Commission spokesman Terry Hadley said.
Last year, 506,000 households received an average monthly credit of $32.23 under the program, he said.
At an average rate of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, a 12,000 BTU window unit (enough to cool 500 square feet) that is run for 10 hours a day would cost about $40 per month.
The help is a far cry from what advocates for the poor hoped it would be: Since 2007, discounts have been available only from May through September, not year round. They’re not an “entitlement,†so when lawmakers decide to spend less of the fees coming in, discounts disappear when the money runs out.
In 2004, the utility commission switched eligibility-verification vendors, required more documentation and tightened entry. It disallowed some households that previously qualified, such as those in which only children, not parents, received Medicaid coverage. In fiscal 2004, enrollment plunged to about 300,000, from 793,000 at the year’s start.
Former Sen. David Sibley, R-Waco , said that as author of the 1999 electric-deregulation law, he agreed to the discounts as “a fair thing to do†— and to nail down support from urban Democrats.
But supporters of the discounts say that even before the program began in 2002, they had to fight off a siphoning of the money proposed by a key lieutenant of then-Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center.
“We’ve just had a struggle every single session,†said Biedrzycki, the consumer advocate.
Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said it’s unfair to tax only people in certain geographic areas and hold the money so the state can pretend it has enough general-tax revenue to support higher levels of spending on programs serving all Texans.
“It’s deceptive and dishonest, and it’s certainly not transparent,†he said.
AUSTIN — Texas is hoarding millions of dollars intended to help hundreds of thousands of elderly and impoverished residents pay their electric bills to survive the summer heat.
As Texas suffers through one of the most menacing heat waves in its history, the state this fiscal year has collected $130 million designated to help offset the spike in electrical use but has provided only $28 million thus far to those in need. Without the help, many Texans forgo air conditioning and risk their health.
Even with more people and more need, Texas is spending half as much as it did nearly a decade ago to help the poor and elderly survive summer. The reason: State lawmakers locked away the money to help eliminate their budget shortfall.
“When we have such extreme heat, where people’s lives are actually in danger, it’s like legal grand larceny,†said Carol Biedrzycki of the consumer and environmental group Texas Ratepayers’ Organization to Save Energy. “This is a misapplication of funds that is legal because the legislators who wanted to misapply the funds made it legal.â€
State leaders have said that until the economy recovers and lawmakers overhaul the state tax code, they have no choice but to hoard dedicated-fee money.
More than 100 people who could use that money lined up this week at North Dallas Shared Ministries. The charity offers Dallas residents utility bill assistance and other services.
Dana Certain, 41, who has been unemployed since October 2010, said she was desperate for help with her electric bill.
“I’m either not gonna be able to pay electric or not gonna pay rent,†she said.
Natasha Brocks, 37, visited the charity seeking help with her July electric bill.
Brocks, who recently started a job as a secretary at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, had been unemployed for three months. During that time, some bills piled up.
Now the mother of four has to pay late fees and try to stay current with this month’s bills.
“I’m backpedaling, trying to pay all those bills,†Brocks said.
6 million pay the fee
The money for the energy bill assistance comes from customers in certain deregulated utility markets — mostly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley.
More than 6 million households and businesses pay the fee. It is assessed at 65 cents per 1,000 kilowatt-hours, or about $1 a month for an average residential ratepayer. It is collected as a fee attached to utility bills.
Gov. Rick Perry proposed ending the utility bill assessment four years ago because the money was largely being diverted from its stated purpose.
The governor “continues to promote truth in taxation so Texans can be assured their tax dollars are being spent on their intended purpose,†spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said.
The program, called LITE-UP Texas, began after electrical markets were deregulated in 1999.
In 2004, the state changed eligibility requirements, causing more than half of the almost 800,000 customers who had enrolled for assistance to be cut off. The state continued to collect the fee but kept more of the money to balance the budget.
Publicity slashed
Lawmakers have all but cut out spending from this pot of money on “customer education,†which was to include both awareness of the discounts and how to navigate the deregulated electricity market.
In fiscal 2002, the state spent $12 million on customer education, which paid for TV ads. But for at least the last five years, it has spent $750,000 a year, which mostly goes for a website to help educate consumers.
By the end of the next two-year budget cycle, Texas will be sitting on nearly $1 billion of unspent funds intended for utility bill discounts.
In a report released this week, state Auditor John Keel tiptoed around the huge sum. Keel criticized the Public Utility Commission for not analyzing how much fee revenue is needed — as its own rules require — when it sets the rate each year.
But the commission said the Legislature essentially dictates that the highest rate allowed be collected.
Chief Senate budget writer Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, said the only alternative to holding dedicated funds would have been to cut more out of education, public safety and other key programs.
“The utilities got the Legislature to say that in order to assist low-income Texans, let’s make our ratepayers pay for it,†said Ogden, who calls the benefit assessment “a rip-off†deserving of repeal.
“I’m for — when the economy improves — basically eliminating all of those funds, saying they’re not working in the way that they were intended and we don’t need them to balance the budget, so let’s get rid of them,†he said.
$150 million a year
Meanwhile, the fee and interest income generate close to $150 million a year and last year had a balance left of $608 million, said R.J. DeSilva, a spokesman for Comptroller Susan Combs.
The fees pay for the discounts, given only in the summer months. They vary, based on a formula, but “should be more than 10 percent of their bill,†Public Utility Commission spokesman Terry Hadley said.
Last year, 506,000 households received an average monthly credit of $32.23 under the program, he said.
At an average rate of 11 cents per kilowatt-hour, a 12,000 BTU window unit (enough to cool 500 square feet) that is run for 10 hours a day would cost about $40 per month.
The help is a far cry from what advocates for the poor hoped it would be: Since 2007, discounts have been available only from May through September, not year round. They’re not an “entitlement,†so when lawmakers decide to spend less of the fees coming in, discounts disappear when the money runs out.
In 2004, the utility commission switched eligibility-verification vendors, required more documentation and tightened entry. It disallowed some households that previously qualified, such as those in which only children, not parents, received Medicaid coverage. In fiscal 2004, enrollment plunged to about 300,000, from 793,000 at the year’s start.
Former Sen. David Sibley, R-Waco , said that as author of the 1999 electric-deregulation law, he agreed to the discounts as “a fair thing to do†— and to nail down support from urban Democrats.
But supporters of the discounts say that even before the program began in 2002, they had to fight off a siphoning of the money proposed by a key lieutenant of then-Speaker Pete Laney, D-Hale Center.
“We’ve just had a struggle every single session,†said Biedrzycki, the consumer advocate.
Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said it’s unfair to tax only people in certain geographic areas and hold the money so the state can pretend it has enough general-tax revenue to support higher levels of spending on programs serving all Texans.
“It’s deceptive and dishonest, and it’s certainly not transparent,†he said.
