Lewis County PUD Approves 1.9 Percent Rate Increase

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The Lewis County Public Utility District approved a rate increase of 1.9 percent during  Tuesday morning’s board of commissioners meeting. The new rates will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021.

Each residential customer bill consists of the daily basic charge and the kilowatt-hour charge. The daily charge is slated to remain the same at 95 cents and the kilowatt-hour charge increase is 2.5 percent.  When each charge is combined, an average residential customer will see a 1.9 percent total increase in their electric bill.

“I believe what we have here reflects a lot of efforts that allow the utility to move forward in making meaningful infrastructure renewals and replacements while at the same time being sensitive to the situation we’re in with COVID-19 and all of the impacts it brings with it,” PUD General Manager Chris Roden said.

The PUD Commissioners asked PUD staff at the Oct. 20 meeting to reduce the rate increase from the proposed 2.6 to an average under 2 percent. During the rate hearing process, the commissioners received several letters from the public urging the PUD not to raise rates, citing difficulty paying the current PUD bills.

Some of the reasons the PUD has given to explain the need for a rate increase include increased Bonneville Power Administration rates, local power consumption being flat due to COVID-19 and large customer loss, increased investments in capital projects, continued investment in tree trimming and increasing operation costs for labor, goods, materials.

“I think that this is a great piece of work with as little impact on our customers as possible,” PUD Commissioner Ben Kostick said regarding the reduced rate increase. 



The conversion from bi-monthly to monthly billing is being finalized and all customers should be receiving a monthly bill by the end of the year. 

“We are unlocking a huge amount of customer service options and unlocking a huge amount of savings by partnering with lower-cost vendors and implementing a lower-cost system. This is going to pay dividends for quite some time,” Roden said.

The PUD received $100,000 from the Lewis County Board of Commissioners in late October to create a bill assistance program for customers impacted by COVID-19. PUD staff has submitted their report to the county after using about $98,600 to assist customers with their utility bill payments.

“I believe we have met the deadline and just about optimized our allocated budget. It was really a trifecta win — we helped the customers, we helped the PUD and we helped the county spend some of their CARES Act allocations from the federal government,” PUD Public Affairs Manager Willie Painter said.

More information about the PUD and rate setting can be found on the PUD’s website — www.lcpud.org.