Fifteen residents, including some small-business owners, pleaded Monday evening with the North Little Rock City Council to reconsider an electric rate restructuring proposal that most said they feared would increase their bills, hurt elderly residents and chase customers away.
Mayor Joe Smith announced to the full council chambers at the start of the 30-minute public hearing that he wouldn't call for a vote Monday as expected, but would have another public hearing at the next council meeting in three weeks.
Several who spoke demonstrated the confusion over the proposal meant to redesign how the North Little Rock Electric Department charges customers. The proposed rate restructuring would increase the fixed cost charged to each customer to provide them power, but it would lower the rate charged for using electricity.
There are about 38,000 North Little Rock Electric Department customers in North Little Rock and part of Sherwood. The proposal came after the city hired a consultant to perform a rate and cost analysis for the city-owned utility. The utility's last rate increase was in 2007.
"Our average customer is going to spend less money on electricity than they are right now," utility attorney Jason Carter told the audience at the end of the public hearing.
How bills are affected will be "different for everyone," Carter has said. Those using higher amounts of power and those who use the lowest amounts will see increases in their monthly bills over the three-year period during which the increases will be put into place. The first changes will occur Oct. 1, if the council approves the proposal. Small businesses have been undercharged under current rates, Carter said.
Several people who spoke Monday said any increase would hurt them financially. A few mentioned that after city voters had approved a new 1 percent city sales tax in a special election in August, which took effect Jan. 1, the city is asking for a different type of increase.
"Our concerns are mostly senior citizens and lower-income folks," Brenda Hampton told the council. "Since we had a sales tax increase, what is the main purpose for increasing electric rates at the same time?"
Artis Boykin also referred to how close the electric proposal is to the sales tax increase.
"That's quite a cut into our finances in a short period of time," Boykin said.
Smith told the audience that the sales tax and the city's general fund that pays for city operations are separate and the proposal "has nothing to do with the electric company." The new sales tax is added onto monthly electric bills.
Some small-business owners -- expected to be hit the hardest by the changes, Carter has said -- told council members that they would have to raise what they charge for goods and services if their utility bills go higher and that they could lose customers because of it.
"Can I afford for my utilities to go up? No," said Phyllis Hodges, owner of The Carousel wellness center in the city's downtown Argenta area. She said some clients have told her that "if our utilities go up, 'we won't be able to come to the wellness center.' A lot of my clients are on fixed income.
"We don't have any extra money to pay that," she said. "I can't afford for one client to walk out my door. We cannot afford for our bills to go up."
Tammie Lewellen, manager of Parkstone Place retirement center, said: "If our bill goes up, we have to expense that out to our residents."
Evelyn Coley said she was speaking on behalf of her mother who she said is on a fixed income, adding that she already helps pay some of her mother's expenses.
"This will cut into our budget trying to help her," she said. "This right here will hurt her bad."
Metro on 04/24/2018