The JEA board of directors approved a $2.1 billion budget Tuesday for fiscal 2013 that includes a rate reduction for customers and a record $236 million return to the City.
The budget will be sent to City Council for approval.
The budget included a fuel charge decrease and the elimination of the previously approved water-sewer service availability and environmental rate increases that were scheduled to take effect Oct. 1.
The current variable fuel rate charge of $47.74 will be lowered to $43.60 per megawatt hour effective July 1.
That will lower the monthly electric charge by $5.18 for the residential customer who uses an average of 1,250 kWh.
JEA credits its diversified use of fuels to generate power and a drop in the price of natural gas for the fuel rate decrease.
The board also approved eliminating the previously approved water and sewer rate increases in residential and commercial service availability charges and environmental charges, while maintaining rate increases for commercial customers as well as for residential customers who use more than 6,000 gallons a month.
The elimination of the increase will save the customers about $5.30 a month.
The City will receive a record return of about $236 million from JEA. It includes a $106.7 million City contribution, $88.2 in public service taxes and $41.3 in franchise fees.
“When you look at this record amount we are contributing (to the City) the message that needs to be seen is, as we go forward, that JEA is doing a pretty good job of making sure that the City is able to do what it needs to do,” said Mike Hightower, vice chairman of the board.
“We will continue to improve with efficiency and effectiveness as we present that budget to the City Council. A little appreciation from the incoming leadership over there would be well received,” he said.
The board also was updated about the $1.2 million in damages to property and assets as a result of Tropical Storm Beryl on May 27-28.
Tropical Storm Faye in 2008 resulted in about 120,000 customers losing power, while Tropical Storm Beryl created 37,000 instantaneous customer outages.
The storm had a wind speed of 70 mph at landfall and resulted in 2-6 inches of rain throughout Duval County.
The maximum power outage duration was about 50 hours, with 110 customers experiencing outages of more than 36 hours.
The average outage was 12 hours.
JEA’s own System Operations and Control Center also faced an outage during the storm.
“We have two circuits that serve it and both of those went out. Our emergency generator came on and went out, so that is something we are working on,” said Jim Dickenson, JEA managing director and CEO.
JEA was able to operate the system on battery backup while it restored functions.
Dickenson made it clear that the center allows JEA to monitor its systems and the outage would have affected that ability only and would not have affected its ability to provide power to its customers.
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