When power bills pack a jolt

By TOM ZUCCO

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 10, 2001

With electric bills arcing out of sight one month, fizzling to a mere flicker the next, does some weird kind of alternating current generate Florida Power's charges?

The first shock -- which is appropriate for an electric bill -- came last month. One hundred and twenty dollars.

To many of you, that may seem like a normal power bill. But to me, a single person who is rarely home, who eats out constantly, whose major appliances consist of a blender, a TV and a back-up blender, and who lives in a house so small the front door and the back door are the same, that's insane. My bill is usually less than half that.

At first, like most Americans, I blamed my neighbors. They obviously were taking advantage of my absence and plugging extension cords into my outside sockets. The Remoras across the street. The Lampreys next door. It made perfect sense; they were finally getting even with me for not painting a black 3 on my driveway and going into full grief mode when Dale Earnhardt died.

The only other possibility was that Florida Power had messed up somehow and would correct the bill the next month.

The second shock came in this month's bill. FPC corrected it, all right.

$14.06.

In your face, Reddy Kilowatt. You little freak. It's party time.

But wait a minute. My power bills are starting to read like Bill Clinton's heart monitor at a Miss Universe contest. What's going on here?

Florida Power says it didn't have enough meter readers the previous month, so it had to estimate the bills of about 20,000 customers.

Estimate? Really? So if I don't like their estimate, I can reject it and hire another utility?

Of course not. They're the power company. The ones with the power. The only alternative I have is to build a dam in my yard and create hydro-electricity. But then where would I put my Earnhardt tribute?

Still, this isn't right. Tampa Electric doesn't have this meter reader problem.

And what if it happens again?

I had a little extra money and could pay the bill last month, but what about people on a really tight budget? People who could be hurt by a $100 increase in their power bill?

People like William Cavanaugh III, the chief executive officer, president and chairman of the board of Progress Energy Inc., Florida Power's parent company.

Last year, "Power Bill" Cavanaugh made $871,483 in salary, $1.3-million in bonus, $126,616 in "other annual compensation," $3.9-million in restricted stock awards and $258,389 in "all other compensation." (I assume that's a sneaker contract or something.)

That's a one-year salary of $5.6-million.

Not including free Reeboks.

Maybe he could take a small cut in salary and use the money to hire a few more meter readers. Just half a million bucks or so, enough to hire about 25 folks. It's all about customer service, right?

I called Cavanaugh's office in Raleigh, N.C. His secretary explained that he wasn't in, and that it would be best for me to submit my questions in writing. So I did. Here they are:

• Would you take a slightly smaller salary so we can get some accurate power bills down here?
• What's your monthly power bill?
• Is it estimated?
• Do you write a check each month, or can you just take a day off and call it even?
• What exactly do you do anyway?
• What's your house like?
• Do you have weird neighbors?
• Do you have a 3 on your driveway?

I'll let you know if I hear back.

Or I could just estimate what he'd say.

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