by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
Though JEA expenditures for the 2001-02 fiscal year hovered slightly below its City Council-approved $732 million budget, representatives from the electric authority say it couldn’t have been accomplished without transferring about $4 million from a “reserve fund” to account for inflated fuel costs.
“We were more interested in protecting our customers than raising rates,” said JEA spokesperson Bruce Dugan, explaining the trust fund dip. “Other electric companies across the state were increasing theirs by 10, 12 or even 20 percent and we knew we wanted to take a different approach.”
Fulfilling an obligation to provide “complete documentation” for the monetary redistribution, the JEA presented a budget amendment to the City Council Tuesday night. It is being further reviewed by the Finance Committee.
“The amendment will not impact our current or future budgets,” said Dugan. “It’s really just a matter of bookkeeping. The bottom line is that we came in under our appropriation but we have to formally explain how we managed to do it.”
Dugan said the JEA reserve fund remains “healthy,” despite the $4 million withdrawal, though declined to speculate on an exact figure.
“I can’t really say from memory,” he said, “but the inflated fuel costs are still affecting us. Coincidentally, we’re doing a rate study to see if they, eventually, will change. We might find ourselves doing some restructuring, but consumers are mostly affected by our fixed costs. If fuel, which is a variable cost, stays high, a slight rate increase might be possible. It will be hard to say until we get more information.”