State: Public's voice on utilities to retire

Public's voice on utilities to retire

The state's choice of a new watchdog will pit consumer groups against utility companies.

By LOUIS HAU, Times Staff Writer

Florida public counsel Jack Shreve, for a quarter century the state's chief consumer advocate on utility issues, said Wednesday that he will retire from his post at the end of June.

The 70-year-old attorney is nearly synonymous with the Office of Public Counsel, which argues the consumer's side of matters before the Florida Public Service Commission, the state's regulator of telephone companies and electric, water, sewer and gas utilities. He has headed the office for all but four of its 29 years.

"I love the job and I've been at it for 25 years," Shreve said. "A lot of people retire to try to get away from work, but I don't feel that way. But it's probably time for me to go."

Shreve has to depart under terms of the state's Deferred Retirement Option Program, which provides extra retirement benefits but requires that participants relinquish their posts five years after signing up. Under that rule, Shreve said his last day on the job would be June 30.

The post of public counsel is a one-year appointment by the 10-member Joint Legislative Auditing Committee, yet Shreve has been reappointed every year since first being named to the job in 1978. Now the committee will come under conflicting pressures from utilities and consumer groups in choosing his successor as watchdog.

Shreve negotiated many rate settlements with phone companies and electric utilities, often taking a more aggressive stance than the Public Service Commission.

In 1994, he reached an agreement with Southern Bell, now BellSouth, to reduce its rates by $300-million a year.

Shreve also reached an agreement last year with Progress Energy Florida Inc., then known as Florida Power Corp., under which the St. Petersburg utility agreed to cut its base rate by $125-million a year to ensure that consumers shared in the cost savings from Carolina Power & Light's 2000 takeover of Florida Power's parent, Florida Progress Corp.

Progress had initially offered a rate reduction of just $5-million. But Progress spokesman Aaron Perlut said the utility had a "productive working relationship" with Shreve.

"We have great respect for Jack," Perlut said. "He performs a vital service for consumers in Florida."

Shreve's reputation among utility companies for doggedness in defending consumer interests has been key, according to Bill Newton, executive director of Florida Consumer Action Network in Tampa.

"When they file (for a rate increase), they know they're going to have to deal with him," Newton said. "So that's kept things reasonable."

Shreve is the longest-serving state utility consumer advocate in the nation, according to the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates.

The Joint Legislative Auditing Committee hasn't begun a search for Shreve's successor because he hasn't yet formally announced his pending retirement, committee director Terry Shoffstall said.

Shreve said he hopes his replacement will come from his current staff, some of whom have worked with him for much of his tenure.

"I hadn't thought I'd stay here for this long," Shreve said. "I guess it's turned into my life's work."

-- Louis Hau can be reached at hau@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3404.