Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Dedicated to the citizens of Mason County, Washington since 1886
Mason County Public Utility District 3 has increased its rates for 2023, which was included in adopting the 2023 budget in a vote on Nov. 22.
According to a news release, PUD 3 commissioners adopted a 5% effective energy rate increase for various rate schedules and a monthly “low-income energy assistance surcharge” to comply with state legislation for low-income programs. The residential increase will take effect in April and raise the energy rate from $0.07710 per kilowatt-hour to $0.08160 per kWh with no increase to the system change. A 2,000-kWh use will increase the residential rate about $9.55 per month per household, and does not include the surcharge.
The commissioners adopted a $101.2 million budget, a $12.8 million increase from 2022. According to the news release, commissioners voted to supplement the budget with $5 million from the PUD’s reserves to hold down the increase.
“In addition to trying to reduce the rate impacts to customers by adding the $5 million out of the PUD’s reserves, we are also looking at our budget in comparison to the inflation rate. Even with these massive impacts to costs, the PUD’s budget increase is still under the inflation rate by over 2%,” PUD 3 General Manager Annette Creekpaum said in a news release.
A reason behind the budget and rate increase, according to the news release, include wholesale power costs, which increased 12.8%. Power costs are responsible for about 41% of the PUD’s rate-funded budget. The updated power contract with Bonneville Power Administration includes a 5% rate increase for wholesale power to Mason PUD 3, one of the highest in the region.
Visit http://www.pud3.org for more information.
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