ROSEVILLE, Calif. — The Roseville City Council unanimously approved the first reading of a proposal for a temporary 8% surcharge for Roseville Electric Utility customers.
The second reading of the ordinance is set for Dec. 21. According to Erin Frye, a spokesperson for Roseville Electric Utility, if the council votes to adopt the ordinance at the second reading, the surcharge would be implemented Feb. 1, 2023.
This 8% energy surcharge is in addition to an already-approved 3% increase starting in January, so if it passes, customers could see an 11% increase.
"For a residential customer, to give you an idea, that's roughly $15 a month for an average utility bill, and then that obviously increases across our customer classes depending on what type of usage they have," Frye previously told ABC10.
City councilor Scott Alvord asked the utility what would happen if the council did not approve the charge.
"We would certainly see a degradation in service levels, number one. Number two, our financial metrics would erode significantly and expose us to downgrades, which could further limit our ability to borrow resources from the investment community and continue to provide the reliability that we do today," Eric Campbell with Roseville Electric Utility said at the meeting.
What does this mean for my bill?
For a residential customer paying an average monthly bill of $116, the 3% increase starting in January would cost around $120. With the proposed 8% charge, the bill comes out to about $130. For small commercial customers paying about $160, the 3% annual increase and 8% charge would come out to $178.
"We're also taking to council a proposal to offset the surcharge increase for those customers enrolled in our electric rate assistance program. Because we know that those customers are obviously impacted the most, so we look to offset that in 2023 for those income-qualified customers," Frye previously told ABC10.
According to Roseville Electric Utility, there was no rate increase from 2015-2021, but starting in 2022 there was a 3% increase that will also happen in 2023.
For more answers to FAQs, see Roseville Electric's surcharge fact sheet.
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