National Grid customers fuming over where their money's going
By
By EMMA WRIGHT
Story Created:
Sep 3, 2010 at 11:17 AM EST
Story Updated:
Sep 3, 2010 at 6:31 PM EST
(WKTV) - National Grid is in hot water after a recent investigation by New York state found they were spending lavishly while requesting a $400 million dollar increase for upstate electric rates.
According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, in 2008-2009 National Grid billed its Niagara Mohawk Division for at least 30% of expenses like these:
$35,700 to send an employee's two children to a private school in Boston
$8,400 for a departmental holiday cocktail party
$3,566 to repair an employee's washing machine and pool cover
$1,254 to ship a British executive's wine collection to the U.S.
$1,208 to ship a British executive's cat to the U.S.
Many Central New Yorkers are very unhappy with the state's findings. They say their utility bill is high enough and the thought of paying more really makes their blood boil.
"I'm totally opposed to that," said James Tinker of Remsen. "That's money coming from us...the small people."
Most of the expenses were incurred by National Grid executives and British employees working here in the United States.
National Grid's current electric rates were set in 2002 and did not factor in expenses for British employees working here. National Grid wants to include those expenses in new, higher energy rates starting in 2011.
After state officials questioned the company's spending, National Grid offered to slash $4.27 million from its proposed rate hike.
In a statement National Grid said in part, "Our pending rate request is undergoing a comprehensive regulatory review. To date we have responded to more than 1,000 requests for information from regulators, customer groups and others. In our responses we included some information about business expenses. While those expenses had not been passed on to customers in current rates, some were among the costs used as a basis for our pending rate proposal."
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