By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Members of the Williston City Council Tuesday gave preliminary approval in a public hearing to an ordinance raising the cost of natural gas over the next two years to about $20 per month for residential customers, but the city agenda made no mention of increasing rates.
That number doesn’t include a customer use rate which will raise the bill a little higher depending on how much gas residents consume at their homes. The city also increased commercial and industrial natural gas rates for the city’s biggest gas customers – farmers.
The ordinance allows the city to compensate for inflation annually using the Consumer Price Index to adjust the cost of gas accordingly.
The issue of failing to announce the proposed gas rates in the agenda also occurred earlier in the same meeting when the council gave preliminary approval to a monthly increase in electric bills of $31.54 during a separate public hearing. The agenda didn’t announce a rate hike was being proposed.
Both ordinances will come back in two weeks for final approval by the council.
City Manager Terry Bovaird said the problem of not announcing proposed rate hikes in the agenda won’t happen again. In both instances, support documents attached to the agenda discussed proposed rate increases but not the agenda itself.
One of the problems with failing to announce proposed rate hikes in the agenda is that the public often doesn’t bother to dig deeper into the attached support documents when there’s nothing to alert them to the proposed increases in the agenda itself. They tend to stay home rather than show up for the hearings. They certainly won’t storm into the council meeting protesting higher utility rates if they don’t know what’s coming.
The agenda item for the gas rate increase said:
“1st reading of ordinance 2023-714; an ordinance of the City of Williston, Florida; making certain findings and determinations: amending Section 40-184 of the code of ordinances, City of Williston, Florida; repealing all ordinances in conflict; providing for severability; and providing an effective date. Public Works Supervisor Donald Barber.”
The increase in gas rates is expected to generate $200,000 in the first year and an additional $100,000 in the second year. The city natural gas utility will lose about $200,000 in the current fiscal year ending on Sept. 30, 2023. The $200,000 loss factors in money that is taken from all the city-owned utilities, natural gas included, and moved into the city’s general operating budget for such things as police, fire, parks, and salaries. In the current year, the city council transferred $1.1 million from the utilities fund to the general operating budget. The council says the transfer of utility money spares city residents from higher property taxes.
For residential customers this year, the first year of the higher rates, the base natural gas bill will increase from $10 to $15. It will jump to $20 in fiscal year 2023-24, according to Thomas Geoffroy of Florida Gas Utilities (FGU) the cooperative that sells the city’s natural gas.
The city’s biggest natural gas customers aren’t residential homes. The biggest users are farm operations like B&G Produce and Williston Peanut that use natural gas for their crop driers. Industrial customers are billed a flat fee every month. Industrial users will see their flat rate rise from $1000 to $1,500 per month. Most of their usage comes during crop and seed drying seasons.
Spreading out the charge using a flat fee allows farmers to price their products in a way that’s easier to manage, according to Geoffroy. He conducted the rate studies at no charge to the city. He said the city needs to be careful about not overpricing industrial gas customers because they could exercise their option to use other fuel sources and the city could lose their business and all the revenue that comes with it.
Geoffroy said the new rates will generate about a 50 percent increase in natural gas revenues.
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City of Williston Regular Meeting June 6, 2023; Posted June 8, 2023
