It’s not Truth or Consequences Electric Department Director Bo Easley’s fault that he was elevated by city commissioners to his long-held director’s position.
The city commissioners have hiring and firing power and have the duty of ensuring competent people run city departments on behalf of the people.
It only became clear to the city commissioners that the electric department hadn’t been managed or run correctly until they spent three years and commissioned seven studies to determine if they should sell the facility to Sierra Electric Cooperative.
I only know there were seven studies because someone high up at Sierra Electric told me so—off the record. I submitted at least three Inspection-of-Public-Records-Act requests for the studies, at first being told they would not be made public until the city commission arrived at a decision. Finally I was told—if you can believe the gall—that the city didn’t have the studies.
My off-record source told me it took three years because T or C had not kept records, therefore they could not prove the age of their equipment, what upgrades they had made over the years, what regular maintenance they had done. Whether Sierra Electric made a low-ball offer or not is unknown, but how could it do otherwise? Sierra Electric is under Public Regulation Commission rules. It must prove, document and show the age and cost of its equipment. It must inspect and replace it on a required schedule.
In the end, Mayor Rolf Hechler and Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister said they decided not to sell “because we don’t know enough.”
The source also told me the city commission didn’t realize it needed a CEO/manager to run the facility. Mayor Rolf Hechler, Mayor Pro Tem Amanda Forrister and City Commissioner Merry Jo Fahl admitted as much: https://sierracountycitizen.org/sale-of-t-or-c-electric-facility-ends-in-a-whimper/
I assumed they were being disingenuous. Surely they knew that an electric department that takes in about $8 million a year needed a CEO. Surely they know that all city department “directors” need to be qualified CEO types. Why else pay them substantial salaries?
Whether the city commissioners are truly unaware of the basics of management or prefer cronyism-style government that promotes sycophantic loyalty and punishes competent truth-sayers, the result is the same.
T or C directors don’t have to prove their competency, don’t have to submit regular written reports and don’t have to answer to the public. City commissioners, instead of holding themselves and department directors accountable at their public meetings, regularly criticize constituents for speaking to or for complaining to city directors about failing infrastructure. City commissioners, instead of acting like their constituents’ representatives, act as if they represent city staff and city directors, consistently and lavishly thanking and praising them.
How often, dear reader, have I bored you with reports that our water, wastewater, electric and other departments have not and do not write their own asset management plans? Numbering, examining, reporting on the age and functionality of equipment and infrastructure should be an integral part of the everyday running of any department. Updating asset management plans continually and presenting them yearly or each time a capital project is proposed or reported on is the norm in the other cities I have covered as a reporter. Asset management plans are the basis of maintenance and operations, determining how staff is fielded. Asset management plans are the basis of maintenance schedules, upgrade schedules, replacement schedules. Such plans and records are the empirical, factual basis of budgets and capital projects.
But not in T or C. T or C, when it bothers to have an asset management plan, hires outside engineering firms to do them. Outsiders study, assess, number and give estimated values to city assets. Then, once they establish a record of the state and functionality of the assets, they do the critical-thinking and planning part—if the city thinks to ask them to do so and if they pay them to do so.
This is a very expensive way to run a city, as utility-rate payers can attest.
The city had Transmission & Distribution Services of Albuquerque do an asset management plan for the electric department in 2014. It cost about $160,000 and it determined, among other things, that the city was losing about 20 percent of its electric power during transmission/distribution—5 percent loss is normal.
That study was never referred to or used in determining budgets or capital projects by Electric Department Director Bo Easley or by the city commission.
At the June 26 meeting, the city commission hired T & D again to do an asset management plant, which is divided into two parts, a “study” and an “audit.” The cost is a whopping $540,000, and this doesn’t include 8 percent tax. It also doesn’t include “testing,” which T & D will put out to bid when it gets its “notice to proceed” letter from the city and after it receives the information it needs from the city—customer billing data, primary meter loading data, solar panel locations, contingency switching processes and records of what has been changed or added to the system since 2014.
The study is to evaluate the current performance of the system and the future loads and system upgrades needed through 2036, assuming there will be “2.5 percent growth each year.”
According to the U.S. Census, T or C lost 9.3 percent of its population from 2000 to 2010, ending with a population of 6,492. The 2020 census showed the population was 6,045, a 6.6 percent decrease in population in 10 years. Neilsberg Research, a global marketing research and advisory firm, states that T or C lost 14 residents or .23 percent of its population in 2021, lost 32 residents or .53 of its population in 2022, gained 1 resident or .02 percent of its population in 2023, ending up with a population of 6,000.
Evidently city commissioners prefer to charge its fewer customers more to build a bigger system rather than acknowledge the city is not growing.
The audit will update the 2014 asset management plan, will recommend system operations procedures and modifications, will examine the substation and recommend repairs and improvements on a proposed schedule. The audit, after a “condition assessment,” will “create a ranking system that prioritizes rehabilitation, replacement, upgrades and construction.”
T & D will deliver a comprehensive report digitally and on paper and “up to three presentations to the city commission.” I hope the city commission arranges to have the report made available on the city website for a month before holding a Q&A session and presentation explaining the study/audit in layman’s terms for the people. I hope fellow electric customers will go to the mic during city commission meetings or call city commissioners or the city manager to express that desire.
I called T & D yesterday and asked if they have received a “notice to proceed,” but, as yet, have received no response. I saw an ad in the Sentinel, Sept. 5 edition, taken out by the city and T & D, apprising electric customers they would be in private right of ways while assessing and testing the system, requesting our cooperation. The study/audit will take up to six months, so if they started in September, they should be finished February 2025.
I spoke with Mayor Hechler after the Sept. 22 meeting and he said the city commission decided to hire an outside firm to do the study/ audit/asset management plan rather than hire a CEO type to run the department because it “would be cheaper.”
According to Cause IQ, a company specializing in non-profit companies, Sierra Electric Cooperative’s general manager makes $135,000 a year. Both the city’s electric facility and Sierra Electric have about 4,000 customers.
I contend that T or C residents and captive customers on T or C electric would be better served if the city hired a competent CEO/manager rather than hire an outside firm to swoop in to give unheeded and unused recommendations. The prior asset management plan wasn’t implemented, if indeed the city staff was capable of understanding and implementing it. We have a day-to-day and long-term management problem and an outside study won’t fix that. Periodic assessments of functionality by an outside firm will not replace the necessary record keeping of what was bought when and for how much. Outsiders guessing how old a piece of equipment is and testing it is not the same as city staff providing firm evidence of its birth date and its scheduled replacement date and its cost estimate for the yearly budget.
We put in 23 panels in 2022 and the city has consistently ripped me off on credits ever since. I don’t get the right credit rate and Im too tired to fight them. My solar guy has been trying to get them to recognize that they are only loosing revenue from a solar customer and not actual money as they sell my kwh for there rate and only credit me for their costs just like when they buy from Sierra Electric.
This is competely rediculous. There is brand new transformers just sitting waiting to be installed that could make all the differance in the stability of electic being used and stop the ” leaking”bu the have beenon the precurment sites to hire out some one else to do it for well over a year. Ive been told by a source since covid. Why are the hiring an outside source to put up the Brand new transformers that could save us citezens much needed money for our house holds??? Well ive been told it is because we do not actuzlly have a licenced electrician that works for our electric company. And mzybe it is not Bo’s fault he was hired for his position but i want to know how they can justify hireing a man without an electricians licence or the credentials or the where withal to do the jobs and justifiy his over $100, 000 paycheck fir doing NOTHING that is supposed to be getting done and why we the people of T or C are paying the price. There are families here that cannot afford the bills that have doubled if not tripled in the recent months and will loose thier electricity. These are honest working people who have families who do not have the extra $200 and in some cases such as mine $300 that i am now forced to pay. This City electric is a farce and we are the unwilling participents of it. I hope they find a way to justify Bo’s salery amide his negligence and that of the whole department with out 1 licenced electrician because everyone i know is calling a list of agencies on our behalf to address the corruption. And they are coming mark my words and its not going to end pretty but hopfully in the end and after everyone is fined, fired or in jail we will have the new equipment and competent people in thier places. And our bills regulated to amounts we can afford. Makes me ashamed to call T or C my home.
And please excuse my typos. My keyboard is hyper sensitive and the comment section wouldnt scroll back for me to proof read until until I submited the comment.
I am completely and totally disgusted with the total lack of intelligence and professionalism displayed by the utility department personnel, starting at the top with a completely unqualified head of the department, one who is not even a licenced electrician. Not only is his salary completely out of range for his lack of licence, knowledge and ability to run his department economically and professionally, but his arrognant attitude with the public is inexcusable.
I am also wondering exactly who made the decision recently to not only double but in some cases triple the utility bills.
And who is responsible for instructing and allowing the unhelpful arrognant attitude of a few of the office workers. In any other city anywhere this would not be allowed.
I am on a fixed income and am 83 yrs old. There is also a 1 yr old and a 6 yr old . I have addressed the income increase several times with staff and there has been a complete lack of helpful information or direction as to handle the additional costs. I do, however, receive shutoff notices, delinquent notices and complete run-around on the phone.
We, the tax payers of T/C, deserve straight, truthful answers as to why this is happening and what will be done to resolve it
Please see my prior article on the electric rate increase. I couldn’t make the link “live” in this comment box, so you may have to cut and paste the below article web address into your browser.
https://sierracountycitizen.org/electric-rates-are-going-up-jan-1-happy-new-year/
That article, and the following comments, only apply to residential electric rates.
The city, bizarrely divides its electric bill into three parts:
1.The monthly base fee went from $8 to $18 Jan. 1, a 56 percent increase. You would think this base fee is for billing and administration. Who knows what it is for, because each utility, electric, water, wastewater, solid waste, transfers $110,000 a year from our cash utility fees into the utility office’s account to pay for its staff, which does the billing and admin.
2. The per kilowatt-hour rate was a little over 8 cents and was raised to 9 cents per kilowatt hour, which is a 9 percent increase.
3. “Energy Cost Adjustment” is the section where the city passes along to the customer any increase in costs from our wholesale suppliers, which are the solar farm, Sierra Electric Coop., Western Area Power Association and Tristate. It’s also the section where the city can increase the fee if city operations costs go up. This makes no sense to me. What is no. 2 for? I think the city has this third billing category because it can be changed immediately. This ECA is also related to your kilowatt-hour usage. It was a little over 4 cents and went up to a little over six cents a kilowatt hour, which is a 33 percent increase.
Therefore no. 2 and 3 give you your kilowatt-hour rate. It was a little over 13 cents an hour, but now it is .1434 cents per kilowatt hour.
Please be aware that every part of your city utility bill has been increasing. Water rates have gone up 70 percent or more since 2019 and go up each year, the increase corresponding to the Consumer Price Index.
Wastewater/sewer goes up 5 percent every year.
Trash fees were going up 5 percent every year, but that wasn’t enough, and a rate study was done and increases imposed, which are too complex to go into here. Search our site for my articles about it.
We went solar trying to get out from under the city. We bought extra panels and our contract is for 110% of our electric yet I still get huge electric bills. During the pandemic closings our commercial building had our breaker box off yet I still received electric bills between $200-$1200 on an empty building and was told the ” smart meters don’t make mistakes” I’m disappointed that there are no regulations to become commissioner. When you take a bunch of people with no experience in government, book keeping or finance and ask them to run a city you might end up with a city not run properly. When you take a person that is not an electrician and ask them to run the entire electric company you might get a city that is not happy with their electric. Maybe the fix to the problem is establishing qualifications for the people in charge.