PUD electric rates going up

NEWPORT – After a prolonged discussion, the three Pend Oreille Public Utility District commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday, March 17 to raise total revenue 2.5%, not the 3% PUD staff recommended.

Commissioner Troy Moody said he was torn between what he heard from staff and what he heard from ratepayers. On the one hand, he trusted what staff recommended but he also knew what he heard from ratepayers. Moody proposed a 2.5% increase, instead of the staff recommended 3%, which he pointed out was higher than the 2.87% increase Social Security recipients received.

Commissioner Dave Rick said he thought 3% was too high for ratepayers.

“They don’t have an appetite for a 3% increase,” he said. Rick expressed frustration to staff about the financial information he received.

Sarah Holderman, director of customer service for the PUD, said that financial information is presented monthly, including at the last meeting. She said that the PUD was dipping into the cash reserves to balance the budget.

Rick said that the PUD didn’t have to raise rates just one time a year. They could raise them as needed, he said.

“It’s not like open enrollment where you have a certain period of time a year where you only have a little window of time where you can make a change,” he said. “As we watch the quarterly and monthly financial reports, we can make a change.”

Moody said just because people didn’t have an appetite for it didn’t mean an increase wasn’t needed. Still, he said, the public’s input must be considered and he didn’t think 3% was right.

“Hopefully it won’t bite us in the butt in a year,” Moody said. “But it might hurt us in ’27 and that’s because I listened to the people who asked me to listen to them, who voted for me to listen to them.”

“The beauty is we don’t have to wait for a year,” Rick said.

PUD General Manager Chris Jones didn’t agree with that. He said rates shouldn’t be reactive, they should be proactive, looking into a financial forecast and what the PUD wants to accomplish and saying the rates are what needed to be done for the long term future.

“If we’re looking at rates as something to try to be reactive to something, we’re not in a healthy spot," Jones said. “That is hope as a tactic. That we hope nothing goes wrong.”

He said staff was trying to keep the PUD healthy.

“We’re not moving rates around and jumping up and down based on the projects we have going right now,” he said. “We’re the utility. Projects don’t get done in a year. Projects get done over a long period of time.”

He said doing a rate increase now and then doing another in eight months would be difficult.

Rick pointed out that in 2022 when there was no rate increase, he was told it was a financial hazard. He said he watched and the PUD was able to put a substantial amount of money into savings despite having no increase.

Rick said he was told it was because of large one-time payments. He said the contract to sell all Box Canyon electricity to Clark County was a benefit to the PUD. He thought it would be a net positive.

April Owen, PUD financial manager, said the increase wasn’t for this year, it was for the future.

“We know in 2027 and 2028 we have about $15 million going out for a substation,” she said. “If we just flatline basically, while we have cash, in 2030 we won’t be bringing in that revenue for operations and maintenance each year.”

Holderman said that even without a rate adjustment, PUD’s cash was going to go up.

“This rate adjustment is not for cash today, it’s so we don’t have to double rates in 2030,” she said.

PUD commissioner Curt Knapp said that a respected consultant the PUD hired had told them a couple years ago that a 4.5% per year increase was going to be needed.

Knapp said PUD commissioners thought they could do better than that. In the strategic plan, they tied rate adjustments to inflation.

“It sounds cold and it probably is, but there are certain things that we can’t fix in our county,” Knapp said. “We can’t fix the amount (of people) that are on low-income. We can’t fix the amounts that are retired. We can’t fix facts.”

He said the PUD needed to look long term. “The charge of a public utility district is to run a sound utility district that’s going to be there through the thick and the thin,” Knapp said. “Stay away from these peaks and valleys as much as we can.”

He said if the strategic plan called for staying near the inflation number, the PUD should do so. The Consumer Price Index for urban consumers, including housing and energy was 2.6% in the first half of 2025 and 2.8% for the second half. For the first two months of 2026, inflation was 2.4%.

After about an hour of discussion, Owen said they could live with a 2.5% increase. The increase would start April 1.

Under the adjustment, the single-phase residential per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) energy charge will increase from $0.0660 to $0.0682, while the monthly service availability charge will remain unchanged.

Individual bill impacts vary by usage and rate class. For a residential customer using about 1,500 kWh per month, the increase is approximately $3.25.

Note: This story has been changed from its original version that stated electric rates will increase 2.5%.