PSC staff: Cut AGL rates

In filed testimony, Kollen said the company can’t justify its current charges and that AGL had inflated expenses in order to justify an increase.

AGL President Suzanne Sitherwood quickly issued a statement, saying the recommendation "is from only one segment of the PSC staff whose job it is to stake out a litigation position in the case."

“The recommendation in its entirety is harmful to our customers, the company and Georgia,” she said.

A second set of PSC staff makes separate recommendations at the end of rate case this fall. The commission is under no obligation to follow either staff recommendation.

AGL’s rate hike bid is the smaller of two pending at the PSC. The other is from Georgia Power. Combined, the two would add $21 per month to a typical family’s utility bills.

The PSC staff filing said AGL wants a rate of return higher than most of its sibling utilities in other states. It also said AGL's rates should fall because it now collects major capital costs through special fees, which was not true when the current rates were set. And it criticized the company’s request for what it  called “phantom expenses.”

The company wants to bill AGL customers for efficiencies achieved when its parents bought other utilities in 2000 and 2004. AGL wants to charge for the savings both retroactively and from now on. Customers would be paying in 2040 for efficiencies stemming from acquisitions decades before, staff said.

The PSC should also deny AGL's request to charge all customers to replace or repair gas equipment for some of them, staff said.

AGL said the program would keep customers on its system. But the staff filing called it a "wealth transfer, taking from all AGLC customers in order to provide subsidies for at-risk customers."