PGE is raising eyebrows after asking for a rate increase on natural gas to fund a $26.6 million shareholder “reward” payment. The utility claims it saved ratepayers money by keeping costs down and that shareholders should be rewarded. But as NBC Bay Area’s Jodi Hernandez reports, the propos al is not sitting well with customers. PGE notified customers of the requested rate hike, stating it saved consumers $170 million by purchasing the lowest gas prices possible from November 2022 to October 2023. While most of the savings go to consumers, the company believes shareholders deserve a portion. “Under CPUC rules, customers retain the majority of those savings, while shareholders may receive a performance-based incentive when procurement costs are lower than the established market benchmarks,” PGE said in a statement. If approved, average monthly bills will go up by about 41 cents. When you’re scraping to get by, every penny counts. Sixty-seven-year-old Janice Mercado and her friend, Janice Henry, had plenty to say after learning about the proposed hike. NBC Bay Area caught up with them at their senior knitting club in Antioch, which they noted is one of the few activities they can still afford. “The PGE rates keep going up and our Social Security doesn’t. So it’s hard to balance the budget here,” Mercado said. “We all have to count our pennies, that’s why we’re here at the senior center activity or social activity that doesn’t cost a fortune.” Mercado questioned why the savings aren’t returned directly to the public. “Why don’t we get the reward?” Mercado asked. “We’ve been paying bills, give it back to the people that are paying the bills, it’s hard for seniors to make our bills.” Henry agreed, pointing to the utility’s troubled history as a point of frustration. “PGE needs to drop the rates instead of raising the rates. They need to get back to the consumers instead of the big pocket people who already have plenty of money,” Henry said. “It seems like PGE has been the cause of a lot of the fires, people have lost their lives, their homes, their livelihoods, their families, and we’re the ones paying for what they did wrong. We didn’t fail to check the equipment. We’re paying bills for what they have done.” Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network (TURN), called the request outrageous and unfair. Ratepayers are already asked to shoulder the costs when PGE goes over budget, he said, and shouldn’t have to pay for a shareholder reward when the utility spends less than projected. “Because PGE thinks they did well and keeping it not too high, they wanna reward just for doing their job. And their job is to keep rates as low as possible,” Toney said. “If they want their shareholders to be rewarded when they underspend, then their shareholders should be held accountable when they overspend. And that’s not what PGE is asking for.” The California Public Utilities Commission is not expected to make a decision on PGE’s shareholder reward request until sometime next year. ...read more read less