Mayor explains reasons behind franchise fee

Editor,

In the next couple months the council will be considering if the town is going to start charging a franchise fee to Carbon Power and Light for the use of town easement/right-of-ways for their power lines. If the decision is made to charge a franchise fee it will be the first time in Carbon Powers history that they were charged a fee by the Town of Saratoga. Carbon Power currently pays the City of Laramie a 5 percent franchise fee on 6-8 meters that are within the City of Laramie and absorb that cost because it is minimum number of meters. The town is considering asking for a 4 percent franchise fee.

Carbon Power has already indicated that they will pass the fee on to the consumer with most seeing about a 7.00 increase in their monthly bill. Passing the fee on is a common practice regardless if it is a for profit utility or a non-profit utility, it is not uncommon for utility co-ops (most being non-profit) to be charged a franchise fee. Carbon Power also charges 27.00-35.00 dollars a month for a facility charge which is used to upkeep their equipment which could be an option instead of the franchise fee for the town to consider. The Public Service Commission encourages municipalities to charge fees to all utilities.

We currently have three other utilities phone, cable, and gas that are charged a franchise fee for use of the town easement/right-of way. We will review each franchise as it comes up for renewal and are currently renewing the cables franchise and at their suggestion it will be 5 percent franchise fee.

With Carbon Power’s 2.8 million dollars collected in the Saratoga area it would amount to approximately 100,000.00 in revenues for the town. .The town currently pays Carbon Power approximately 180,000.00 dollars a year for electrical service. The town has also paid out approximately 40,000.00 dollars for damage done out at the well field due to surges in the electrical power, with the potential of another 5-6,000.00 needed from issues that happened during the last power surge.

The additional money would be helpful but it also is fair to the other utilities that are paying a franchise fee. I feel that we would be derelict in our duties if we didn’t make everything fair and equal with all of the utilities.

The comments that have been made so far is that Carbon Power is a non-profit utility and the others are for-profit utilities and they feel as do others that they shouldn’t have to pay because of the non-profit status and the fact that the fee will be passed on to the consumer.

It was also questioned why we needed to charge a franchise fee to get extra revenue and not just cut our budget more. The next two places to cut in the budget are employees and services. If we were to cut employee’s we would have to start with part-time and seasonal which would mean the loss of the pool as it is staffed by our local youth, and the weed whackers which also consist of employing our local youth.( It was asked by an audience member why the seniors couldn’t pull and cut their own weeds. )

Cutting full time employees will delay projects being completed even more. Service to be cut would include snowplowing with only main arteries being plowed and the potential of some alterations in the recreation program.

Mayor John Zeiger

Saratoga