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LOUIS HAUPower companies' customer bases are rising along with profits, but the number of workers has declined amid questions of reliability.
Clearwater resident Bob Kershaw was glad to see workers sent by Progress Energy Florida trim the branches of a camphor tree in his back yard on Harn Boulevard last month.
But the retired insurance executive couldn't help but wonder why the branches near his power lines hadn't been cleared sooner. Before the recent storms.
"The timing has been off," said Kershaw, 90. "I think they've let it go too long."
Overgrown tree branches contributed significantly to the power outages that Floridians suffered during the state's four-hurricane summer. "Vegetation management," as the utility companies call it, is an important part of power line maintenance, and in the aftermath of the storms it was one of the most visible measures of how well the bay area's top utilities handled such large-scale wind damage.
But the challenges of this hurricane season came at a critical time in the life of Tampa Electric Co. and Progress Energy, two investor-owned utility companies that, for different reasons, have smaller staffs today than they had 10 years ago, despite both having significantly larger customer bases.
The years leading up to this summer have been marked by ever-tighter cost controls and by diverging records on reliability between Tampa Electric, whose record has declined, and Progress, whose record has improved.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents line crews, power plant operators and other craft workers at Progress and Tampa Electric, says the years of cost-cutting at utilities across the country have stretched employee ranks too thin and are hurting reliability.
Officials with Progress and Tampa Electric counter that technological innovations have enhanced productivity and made it possible to effectively serve more customers with fewer employees. Still, both utilities have taken steps to reverse some of their job losses, steps that local IBEW leaders see as insufficient.
Now, Progress has warned of a pending round of fresh job cuts before the end of the year. And the lingering questions about the two utilities' tree-trimming work and other routine maintenance before the hurricanes have placed a renewed focus on their staffing levels.
During the past decade, Progress and Tampa Electric have enjoyed enviable customer growth, fueled by Florida's sustained population boom.
Tampa Electric has seen its customer base grow from about 490,000 customers at the end of 1994 to about 620,000 today. Progress, which was known as Florida Power Corp. until it was acquired by Carolina Power & Light in November 2000, went from about 1.2-million customers a decade ago to more than 1.5-million.
But during that same period, the workforce at both companies didn't expand - it shrank. A decade ago, Tampa Electric had 2,828 employees, of which 1,154 were IBEW members. By the end of last year, those numbers had fallen to 2,434 total employees and 905 IBEW members.
Florida Power employed 4,972 at the end of 1994, of which 2,200 were IBEW members. At the end of last year, the company's total employee count had fallen to 4,690, while its IBEW ranks were about the same.
"We are adding customers," said Jeff Lyash, Progress' senior vice president for energy delivery. "However, that doesn't necessarily imply that the size of the workforce should grow proportionately. While you're adding customers, you're also implementing technology, automating systems, data management and reporting. . . . To the extent that we can use technology to make people more productive, that's what we like to do."
Industry experts say that thinning staffing levels are partly the legacy of the fervor for electricity deregulation that swept through the United States in the 1990s. With expectations that the Florida retail power market soon might move from government-regulated monopolies to open competition, utilities cut costs to be more efficient and better prepared to vie for customers, according to Tim Winter, a utility analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis.
The enthusiasm for deregulation faded quickly following the 2000 power crisis in deregulated California, but shifting corporate priorities at Florida Power/Progress and Tampa Electric also contributed to the belt-tightening.
Florida Power's focus on improving profits during the '90s was heightened by its hope of finding a buyer, and it worked, attracting Carolina Power & Light. But spending was reduced on routine maintenance and the company ended up with the worst reliability record of any investor-owned utility in Florida.
Meanwhile, Tampa Electric has been affected by financial problems at parent TECO Energy Inc., which made huge investments in unregulated wholesale power markets that later turned sour.
With a pressing need to preserve cash, TECO instituted a series of cost-saving measures, including eliminating more than 350 nonunion jobs at Tampa Electric and other subsidiaries in 2002 and 2003.
Tom Hernandez, Tampa Electric vice president for energy delivery, echoed Progress' argument that new technologies allow them to do more with less and downplayed the impact of TECO's troubles.
"Do I have an open checkbook? No, but nobody does," he said. "I'm not compromising for any standard that I would find unacceptable. . . . Despite the challenges, I'm able to get the resources I need."
Labor and time-saving technological advances have included improved information-gathering via computers installed in bucket trucks and the introduction of automated meter reading in some areas.
In addition, customer growth has led to the construction of new facilities, such as the natural gas-fired generating units at Tampa Electric's Bayside Power Station in Tampa, which require less maintenance and a smaller staff.
But even as they defend their ability to provide reliable service with fewer people, Progress and Tampa Electric have taken steps in recent years to augment their staffing levels.
Tampa Electric has expanded its apprentice training program to add linemen. Progress has added about 400 employees since CP&L's takeover of Florida Power and is wrapping up a three-year "Commitment to Excellence" program aimed at making overdue improvements to its electrical system.
But IBEW representatives argue that even these efforts haven't been enough, not when customer growth remains so strong.
"All those areas are booming," said W.O. "Butch" Enyard, business manager of IBEW System Council U-8 in Crystal River, which represents Progress line crews. "All those apartment complexes are going up, subdivisions, gated communities. . . . We've grown so many customers, but we don't have enough people to service what we got."
Routine maintenance has suffered, linemen say, including simple but vital tasks such as trimming trees, replacing old utility poles and changing out damaged lightning arresters, devices installed on utility poles to divert lightning strikes from power lines.
It's something that hasn't escaped the attention of the Florida Public Service Commission. Last December, Progress sought to have a batch of outages caused by a severe electrical storm excluded from the reliability statistics the PSC compiles for all utilities, arguing that there was no way the company could have been prepared for such damage.
But the PSC staff recommended the commission reject Progress' request, saying the company had failed to take steps that would have lessened the number of outages, including keeping trees trimmed and installing enough lightning arresters. Progress withdrew its request.
The reliability data compiled by utility companies provides a glimpse of system performance, but it's not definitive because companies report the information differently and reliability issues vary widely by region and terrain.
In 1997, the average Tampa Electric customer experienced 46 minutes of power outages. That annual average remained little changed through 2001, but increased to 57 minutes in 2002 and jumped again last year to 71 minutes. By contrast, Progress improved from an embarrassing 158 minutes in 1997 to 86 minutes in 2003.
Hernandez said recent rises in Tampa Electric's outage minutes can be attributed to the company's failure to request exemptions from the PSC for outages caused by severe weather.
Lyash said Progress' far larger service territory includes more rural areas that are prone to longer outages because of thicker tree cover and relatively greater distances between customers. He said customers in Progress' south coastal region, which includes heavily developed Pinellas and Pasco counties, experienced 66 outage minutes in 2003.
"You're trying to keep the right balance between financial objectives, operating performance and service levels," Tampa Electric's Hernandez said. "And I think we do a hell of a job."
Times researchers Deirdre Morrow and Aakash Patel contributed to this report. Louis Hau can be reached at 813 226-3404 or hau@sptimes.com