KCK residents want hated fee off BPU bills. But will it just be replaced by higher rates?
Days after the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, directed the Board of Public Utilities to remove a despised surcharge from utility bills, area activists who have long lobbied for that change are still unsatisfied.
The city and county government is poised to collect $37.1 million next year through its PILOT, short for payments in lieu of taxes, which currently comes as a line-item charge on residential and commercial utility bills. The charge is supposed to make up for the maintenance of property that is publicly owned and tax exempt.
But now, given a pair of obvious options available to the public utility board — make drastic cuts or increase electric and water rates for customers — some residents fear the same amount of money will come from their pockets if only in a less obvious way.
“Taking the PILOT off of our bills is a great thing. We’ve been fighting for that forever,” Louise Lynch of the Community Conscience Action Network told members of the BPU’s board during a public meeting last week. “However, we were fighting not just to take it off, but to relieve us of that burden.”
Earlier this month, County Administrator David Johnston said the public utility’s method of billing customers directly is incorrect, saying the money is supposed to come from the BPU’s general operating revenue. The BPU has been given until Oct. 1 to remove the charge from customers’ bills.
The county administrator made the announcement during his presentation of next year’s budget, which is facing millions in proposed cuts after Unified Government commissioners voted 9-0 to freeze property tax revenues earlier this year.
Following years of community protest, the Unified Government also agreed to lower the monies collected through PILOT — by a single percentage point — in step with commitments made by earlier administrations.
How the BPU will address the new order by the Unified Government remains unclear.
There’s been little response from the public utility’s managers on the issue. A spokesman for the BPU told The Star last week available options remain under review.
During the BPU meeting Wednesday, Lynch and other resident activists criticized the latest development as an attempt to obscure the charges customers pay.
“We knew there had to be another shoe to drop,” said Pamela Penn-Hicks, adding: “The community is maxed out. I’m hearing from people in Piper, Argentine, Armourdale, Rosedale, all of these areas of town, not just the old traditional Northeast area, but other areas of town.”
Ty Gorman, of the environmental advocacy group the Sierra Club, asked the board members to advocate for a “fair utility rate that does not have those hidden giveaways.” He also criticized other practices of the Unified Government, including the current cost of the fee and continued collection of trash and stormwater charges on BPU utility bills.
“If the UG is just trying to put more flat fees on electric and water charges, and hide it in the bill … board members should not allow and not approve that kind of rate hike and disingenuous move,” Gorman said.
Rate hikes have historically been a source of controversy as some customers have reported struggling to choose between paying bills or buying food. Programs have been put in place to assist some of the most vulnerable customers, though activists say those measures have fallen short.
Last year, the public utility raised its electric and water rates to kick in over two years despite pleas against the measure. It drew a 4-2 vote from the six-member board.
At the time, BPU General Manager Bill Johnson highlighted needs to increase revenue driven by a trend of residents and businesses moving westward out of Wyandotte County and leaving a smaller customer base to foot the bill amid growing costs. Since 2018, the public utility has laid off roughly 10% of its staff.
Board members were scheduled to set aside time to publicly discuss the matter Wednesday. But that was nixed shortly before the meeting got underway.
Still, some members offered up frustrations — on broader issues as well as the situation at hand — while tiptoeing around the term “PILOT.”
State Sen. David Haley, elected to the board last year, spoke to the “elephant in the room,” referencing newfound expectations of Unified Government leaders and “shifting the buck.” He said he ran for his seat to promote transparency, accessibility, lower rates and quality service.
Speaking to an “opaque shift” that involves “what costs are incurred by all of us and how those will be billed,” Haley said: “That’s going to be a monumental task for accuracy and inclusion and awareness of what we’re actually confronting here as we come to grips with that, and as we look at our budget ahead.”
Rose Mulvany Henry, an attorney and board member since 2019, openly questioned whether she has the ability to make a difference in her community through her elected position on the BPU.
“I’m going to really think about this,” she said. “I’m going to pray about it, as we continue to try to solve our impending budget issues. Because if I conclude that my efforts to date are rendered useless, it may require me to find a different way to serve my community than through this board.”
This story was originally published August 12, 2024 at 1:41 PM.
