KCP&L is committed to helping customers understand their bills
The Kansas City region is experiencing one of the hottest summers in decades. That, coupled with recent changes to Kansas City Power & Light Company’s budget billing program, have resulted in higher bills for some customers.
We understand this has left some of our customers frustrated. We hear you. On Friday, we announced that we are allowing extra time for customers to pay these higher bills by temporarily expanding payment options and suspending residential disconnections. Effective immediately and through the end of September, no residential customers will be disconnected. In addition, beyond the programs always available, we are now offering a four-month extension and payment plan to help customers who are seeing higher bills or have large balances. We are urging customers to call us to set up payment arrangements following the holiday weekend at (816) 471-5275 or (888) 471-5275.
Many customers have questioned why their bills are higher than normal. Electricity bills are primarily based on how much energy a home or business uses in a month, so bills fluctuate based on that usage. For a residential customer, the factor that impacts usage the most is hot weather. In summer, energy usage goes up, especially on the hottest days, resulting in higher bills. Our region has experienced more than 50 days of 90-plus-degree heat this year — more than double the number to date in 2017.
In addition, a change to our budget billing program — which about 20 percent of our customers use — has impacted those customers’ bills. Previously, if a customer enrolled in budget billing used more electricity than they were paying for each month, they were surprised with a large balance at the end of the year. This resulted in a larger bills and higher budget billing amounts going forward.
Every year, we received many complaints from customers about this aspect of our old budget billing program. So we have updated it to eliminate the big adjustments that surprised and frustrated customers. It now allows more regular bill updates to create more consistency throughout the year. Our revised budget billing program is consistent with similar ones offered by other utilities across the country. To switch to this new program, however, all budget billing customers had what’s known as a “true up” over the last several weeks. This is why customers started seeing new budget billing amounts on their most recent bill.
The higher bills because of extreme weather and changes to our budget billing program have led some customers to request that KCP&L’s billing be audited. As a regulated utility, we do undergo regular audits by the Missouri Public Service Commission and the Kansas Corporation Commission. We provide extensive documentation on how customers use energy and the rates that are charged for that usage, and will continue to do so. In fact, KCP&L is undergoing an audit of our rates right now as part of our rate review cases in both Missouri and Kansas.
We understand customers want to know more. In addition to the information previously sent this summer to those enrolled in our budget billing program, we are reaching out to everyone we serve to provide information about our expanded payment options. We want to work with all our customers to find the plan that best suits their needs.
Chuck Caisley is chief customer officer for Kansas City Power & Light Company.