Utility bill rant - No wonder we can't get ahead

What the hell is the "franchise fee" as dBm nd why are they paying it on to the consumer. Why does your city even have this money making scam. What is Carstairs doing for the community with this money?
$20 bucks x every house in the city is a LOT of money.

We have a lot of crap on our bills here too. Same kinda stuff that's infuriating. Distribution charges, transmission charges maintenance bla bla bla...nothing but a scam.
Here's an analogy for you... if you go to the supermarket and buy a small bag of apples for like $3 bucks, do you every see the farmer stopping you at the door and saying...."Hey, you with the apples" then charging you an extra $5 for delivery?
How do they get away with that crap. They never had that stuff years ago.
Damn politicians figured out another way to get their palms greased no doubt.
They came up with some of it when they said they were going to open up the market so you can shop for better prices on gas and electricity. Then they turned a blind eye to these distribution and transmission companies and their charges... Thanks for nothing.
 
@Davea Lux I think I read that at a fireplace store or sales place so I treaded lightly.
@78Brougham public utilities need a course in business, not everything you collect for payment is profit. Just tell your customers that the government said it's okay for you to surcharge them when you need new tires.
 
78Brougham said:
What the hell is the "franchise fee" as dBm nd why are they paying it on to the consumer. Why does your city even have this money making scam. What is Carstairs doing for the community with this money?
$20 bucks x every house in the city is a LOT of money.

We have a lot of crap on our bills here too. Same kinda stuff that's infuriating. Distribution charges, transmission charges maintenance bla bla bla...nothing but a scam.
Here's an analogy for you... if you go to the supermarket and buy a small bag of apples for like $3 bucks, do you every see the farmer stopping you at the door and saying...."Hey, you with the apples" then charging you an extra $5 for delivery?
How do they get away with that crap. They never had that stuff years ago.
Damn politicians figured out another way to get their palms greased no doubt.
They came up with some of it when they said they were going to open up the market so you can shop for better prices on gas and electricity. Then they turned a blind eye to these distribution and transmission companies and their charges... Thanks for nothing.
Click to expand...

The franchise fee is what the provider pays the city to do business in the town. Typically, it would be for the use of city owned right of way for utility owned infrastructure such as poles, underground lines, ground transformers, switch gear etc. The alternative would be for the city to form a municipal utility to own and run their own system. This money is, usually, put back into the general fund. It is used in lieu of taxes. The residents are going to pay this either way through the franchise fee or local taxes. So that cost is really no big deal.

What is “high” to me is the transmission and distribution charges. These fees would be for getting the power to town and infrastructure (transmission) plus local infrastructure (distribution).
 
In the growing smaller town I'm in, 30 miles west of Fort Worth, the proverbial "bedroom community" where people live here and work in the city, we have city-owned electric and water utilities. The city started with a smaller electric generation facility, then built a larger one on the city lake, outside of town, then sold that to a regional power generation provider, used the local generator for special situations, and started to contract with larger providers for electricity.

In their grand wisdom and social responsibility, the younger council opted for "green energy" in the form of natural gas. All was good that first year, but in the second year, that was when natural gas prices spiked, which doubled many electricity bills that month, at least. The outcry was deafening! Their decision was explained, which was good, and payment relief was instituted for fixed-income residents and others. The council members "took their whoopin'", apologized, and we got through it.

In order to pay for "storm water issues", we were assessed a Storm Water Fee related to the square footage of our roofs. To pay for storm drain upgrades and such.

If you rent a car at DFW Airport, the additional fees and such can amount to as much as the basic car rental fee itself! With a unitized rental car area, there's a transportation fee, a Recoup Fee to pay for their rental on the Car Rental buildings, a state sales tax, AND a "Sports Fee Tax" on a nearby city's sports facilities! Just as many cities have a "bed tax" that goes into the local convention/visitors bureau operation and such. "Make the visitors pay for things they come here to see", it seems. But that's just a part of the games people play.

The whole "carbon tax" idea is supposed to motivate consumers to do things differently. Either make different choices of how they consume or what they consume, through "better choices". Unfortunately, many don't have "other choices", other than bicycles, they can make to get to work or stay warm in the winter!

As wind power generation has increased in TX over the past decades, I found an article of how the wind energy industry was revitalizing many rural areas. Seems that each windmill generates about (at that time) $5K/year in lease money to the land owner. Not bad for a basically non-invasive use of grazing land.

Solar is increasing in residential use, too. Earlier this year, a dreaded hail storm didn't destroy a large solar installation, so that was good. The sensitivity of the solar panels is increasing yearly so fewer panels can generate more energy as the cost comes down. Still not really financially viable, per se, and the "re-purchase" of excess power generation amounts can vary with the municipality or power supplier. BUT require "smart meters" to make that happen.

The "smart meters" can be read electronically and remotely . . . no "on the ground" meter readers needed, with water meters being similar.

In the issue of methane . . . many large garbage dumps must collect it, then recycle it into the power generation networks. Some operatives wanted to cap the number of cattle each land owner could have on his land. You can suspect how that went over with the states in which cattle/beef production is a part of their agricultural economies!

In TX, in areas where there is not a municipality-owned facility or not served by rural electricity co-ops, there is a lot of competition for your electrical service business. "The grid" is supplied by many entities, which include completely solar, completely wind, or mix thereof. All new generation facilities will be a mix of that, along with natural gas. You pay them for the electricity you use, even if it was generated on the other side of the state. Obviously a different energy landscape than other parts of the North American area!

CBODY67
 
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My gas usage in the summer is just the hot water tank and uses about a $1.50 worth of gas but with all the fees that are added it come out to over $32!.We are now paying the gas co with a monthly fee for installation of gas lines and infrastructure to new businesses and factories that at one time they paid for. So it's all profit for them now
 
The thing about utility bills and infrastructure seems like it used to be that they all planned for service expansions to new potential customers, as a matter of doing business, which came out of operating reserves or related "future need" funds. Make a little profit to pay for these things.

Somewhere, though, it seems they "got behind" and the only way to catch-up was to add fees for things they used to plan for, as a matter of course. Many of these providers are now publicly-traded, which means "stockholders' return on investment", too.

To me, it seems that with our expanding municipal economies, AND correct long-range planning and accumulation of funds related to that, these infrastructure costs should be covered, with the basic bills being related to power generation/purchase. BUT it seems that infrastructure costs have exploded over the past decade or so. From their side of things, what used to work and be "good business" doesn't seem to work that way any more. Hence, "stop gap" fees and such just to maintain earlier profitability levels. Some utilities and transfer entities have some "different" tax structures and profit distribution methods which are unique to those industries, by observation.

TX has many rural electrical co-ops which generally do a great job in doing what they do. Including returning dividends to the members/customers as their annuitized bonds mature, in many cases. It's all in how things are financially structured.

CBODY67
 
commando1 said:
Look at your cell phone itemized bill closely.
And one of those "fees" is to subsidize free Obama phones.
Click to expand...

obamaphone.JPG
 
CBODY67 said:
The thing about utility bills and infrastructure seems like it used to be that they all planned for service expansions to new potential customers, as a matter of doing business, which came out of operating reserves or related "future need" funds. Make a little profit to pay for these things.

Somewhere, though, it seems they "got behind" and the only way to catch-up was to add fees for things they used to plan for, as a matter of course. Many of these providers are now publicly-traded, which means "stockholders' return on investment", too.

To me, it seems that with our expanding municipal economies, AND correct long-range planning and accumulation of funds related to that, these infrastructure costs should be covered, with the basic bills being related to power generation/purchase. BUT it seems that infrastructure costs have exploded over the past decade or so. From their side of things, what used to work and be "good business" doesn't seem to work that way any more. Hence, "stop gap" fees and such just to maintain earlier profitability levels. Some utilities and transfer entities have some "different" tax structures and profit distribution methods which are unique to those industries, by observation.

TX has many rural electrical co-ops which generally do a great job in doing what they do. Including returning dividends to the members/customers as their annuitized bonds mature, in many cases. It's all in how things are financially structured.

CBODY67
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We still do plan for local infrastructure replacement and installation. The fastest growing area of cost is not day to day operations but legal and regulatory compliance.

We own a small percentage of a coal fired plant. When the EPA requires emission compliance, we have to pay our share of the improvement. When OSHA requires new training or equipment, we have to comply.

It gets folded into rates.
 
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commando1 said:
Look at your cell phone itemized bill closely.
And one of those "fees" is to subsidize free Obama phones.
Click to expand...

There are many fees and charges on any phone bill, not just cell phones. If a young mother has left an abusive relationship and needs some communication capabilities, to me, that small fee is a charitable contribution to her hopefully getting to a better future. It can help prevent larger societal expenses later, by observation. No matter what ethnicity or "whatever" is involved.

Ever notice that new "monthly charge" cell phones, when not activated, can only make 911 calls? OR that your current phone number is portable if you change service providers? Convenience factors, even for the rich.

FWIW, I checked a chart on tax savings last night, in my income range, only about 3%. More income, more savings. Remember how well the Bush tax rebates worked to stimulate the economy? Not until the SECOND round did such small amounts start to work. That was about the time that "economic stimulus" became a bad phrase for a politician to use.

The hidden message was that many Americans were so deeply in debt (plastic or otherwise) that it took much more than $300.00 to make a dent in it. Only that many didn't notice that until later. The bad thing about economics is that you don't know where you've really been until 6 months later, although suspicions might exist at the time.

Trickle-down might work well if it weren't for "greedy stockholders", including many of us with 401-K plans. Remember how Kerkorian didn't like how Chrysler had a nice treasury balance (to get them through their suspected financial downturns in the then-coming years) AND he felt the shareholders should share in that money? Money stayed "at the top", rather than corp spending on new models and plants (which would help their employees). A big balancing act with some "heavy weights" to deal with.

CBODY67
 
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Similar dividends that I'm looking for to help fund my retirement! We're all involved in these orientations, to some degree or another, just that many might not know that per se. You have to have a significant involvement financially, though, for that to work.

I did an online inquiry a year or so ago with a big-name financial firm. They only want new clients who have $500,000. to invest in those income-producing retirement accounts. I'm not there. As a financial advisor mentioned later, "Your $200K isn't on their radar screen".

CBODY67
 
CBODY67 said:
TX has many rural electrical co-ops which generally do a great job in doing what they do. Including returning dividends to the members/customers as their annuitized bonds mature, in many cases. It's all in how things are financially structured. CBODY67
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Agree co-ops are great. We're on a small 40 acre place here that borders the town limit. Up until 2008 we were in the county and were part of a gas co-op. In 2008 our land was annexed into the town as part of a 25 year growth strategy and as a result we were forced to change suppliers. We saw an instant 80% increase and it's been going up ever since.
 
and that's why their pushing electric vehicles up here....$$$$$$$$$$$$ in electricity charges
 
CanCritter said:
don't laugh...........
In a remote corner of Alberta, the oilpatch tells a tale of doom
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The EPA actually went so far as studying Methane emissions from range and dairy cows back in 2008. In Wyoming the installed strap on sensors on some animals to measure fart gas and belching to come up with an estimate of how much methane each animal was producing. There was considerable worry at the time that the government might impose a carbon tax or "fart tax" on beef and dairy animals to combat "Global Warming". Fortunately, that wacko idea never got any traction in the legislative process. If you Google "Government Studying Methane Emissions for Cows?" several articles on the various studies still come up.

The French prime minister, Macron, is currently supporting a "Meat Tax" to combat "Climate Change". The theory being that a high tax on meat will discourage consumption and reduce methane emissions. His current poll numbers are in the toilet, so that proposed tax is probably doomed. Just goes to show though that the nut jobs out there will never stop trying to impose their will.

Dave
 
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