Monthly meter readings, bills irk opt-out LIPA customers

Thousands of customers who opted out of LIPA’s smart-meter program, and thousands more who couldn’t be reached, have begun seeing new opt-out charges on bills that now come monthly, despite a preference by some for bimonthly bills.

Worse, according to one customer who recently received her first opt-out bill, charges for the August period still are based on an “estimated” meter reading, and the amount the utility charged for the 23 days the new charge was in effect was nearly $4 higher than it should have been.

The utility, after decades of reading customers’ meters every other month (or less frequently for some) and estimating every other month’s usage, is now enforcing a monthly meter read and a monthly bill for those who’ve opted out of smart meters. The mandate applies to the approximately 5,000 customers who chose to opt out, as well as the approximately 14,700 “presumptive” opt-outs who (as of July 30) the utility couldn’t reach to indicate a preference.

LIPA stands to make more than $2.6 million more a year by levying the charge if those opt-out numbers stay the same. It’s money the utility said is needed to cover the costs of meter readers and administrative expenses. Customers with smart meters have their meters read at least four times a day via a wireless network that sends the information back to PSEG, eliminating the need for meter readers.

But some opt-out ratepayers who recently received bills that included the charge aren't buying it.

"It's quite clearly a money grab that LIPA has signed off on," said Larry Mikorenda, a media consultant and TV talk show host from Middle Island, who said he opted out of smart meters earlier this year because he doesn’t trust the readings.

"Why do they have to come once a month?" he said, adding, "We never agreed to" monthly bills. "Now all of a sudden, bam! You're getting hit with it." 

Another ratepayer said her new bill raised red flags. 

“I’m not happy about it,” Therese Madonia of Farmingville said of the now monthly bill. “Usually, I plan my payments so that every other month is the [higher] electric bill.”

Madonia said she never gave the utility permission to switch her to monthly billing: “They didn’t even ask me!”

Worse, she said, her usage for the month of August is based on an “estimated” meter reading anyway, according to a copy of the bill shown to Newsday. That, she surmised, is because the PSEG employee didn’t read the meter or couldn’t get through the thicket of garden around her meter. In any case, she said, she never saw a PSEG meter reader at her home

Madonia was hit with an opt-out charge of $12.16 for the 23 days in August she's been under the new billing scheme, a charge she noted is $3.42 higher than it should be, using the utility’s math of 38 cents a day included on the bill. “Even their math is off,” she said.

Neither PSEG nor LIPA responded to specific questions about Madonia's bill. 

A spokesman for the state Department of Public Service, which has "review and recommend" oversight of LIPA, pointed to a July 18 letter from the agency in support of the new LIPA opt-out charges. Opt-out fees, the agency said, "should properly balance opt-out customers’ concerns related to [smart meters] with other customers’ interests in achieving optimally efficient utility operations." 

Madonia’s husband, Gareth Williams, for years has sent in a meter reading by taking a photograph of the meter with a copy of that day’s daily newspaper cover. But a LIPA spokeswoman said that process won’t obviate the need for an actual reading by the utility.

“Manually calling in meter readings is a temporary solution for a customer to get a more accurate bill, but does not replace the need to read the meter monthly by the utility,” the spokeswoman wrote.

The new opt-out charge comes as the cost of energy from LIPA reaches new highs. The power supply charge portion of bills, already at a five-year high in August, dipped only slightly this month, to 13.3 cents a kilowatt-hour in September from 13.8 cents in August. It's up 14.4% compared to September last year and LIPA has predicted high natural gas prices could keep rates high through year's end. 

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.