Avista’s Earnings Double In 2008

27 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

• 

  Arch_Druid on February 18 at 10:44 a.m.

  Time to invest those profits in new equipment and etc.

• 

  Dawn_Q_Otee on February 18 at 10:54 a.m.

  a monopoly really doesn’t “earn” profits. It’s like a strong arm hold-up.

• 

  DFO on February 18 at 10:59 a.m.

  Dawn! I forgot to acknowledge your return. Talk about a blast from the past. Duane Rasmussen popped up yesterday. I was even thinking that I should contact Any Mouse to see if he’d have a message for the new, improved HBO & its crew. Dunno if Trish’s threat to wear her condom dress to Blogfest ‘09 might keep him away. But it’d be nice to hear from the Mouse. (Cue up, “Auld Lang Syne”)

• 

  Arch_Druid on February 18 at 11:02 a.m.

  Even if the condom dress were to arrive on scene, I won’t be there. Sorry. I go to work that day.

• 

  JeanieSpokane on February 18 at 11:09 a.m.

  O this just ticks me off! (not all the other threads - but the main one about Avista - good name, Avarice-sta). Gas prices are going back UP; Avista wants to raise their rates again; AND they made a big profit. And this profit is from you and me trying to stay warm by keeping the thermometer around 60 and wearing 14 layers of college sweatshirts. I have blankets around the house - on the couch; on the easy chair; on the computer chair - so we can move from watching tv to writing on a blog, and stay semi-warm and barely able to pay our utility bill, and Avista makes a profit. Bite me.

• 

  nic on February 18 at 11:18 a.m.

  I was wondering why my power bill has doubled over the last year!

• 

  sue on February 18 at 11:19 a.m.

  I saw an article in the SR a couple of weeks ago, about how much Avista had participated in helping low-income families with their bills,in the neighborhood of $148,000. My thought then was that the money had come from the donation solicitations on the bills, so the money had actually come from ratepayers, but the corporation was taking credit for it. So they raise rates to pay the shareholders, and spin it into an accomplishment. They’re over-charging ratepayers for something necessary for life. In this economic climate especially, it’s particularly obscene. Shame on Avista.

• 

  tarynahecker on February 18 at 11:40 a.m.

  Bah, Avista.

• 

  Katrina on February 18 at 11:46 a.m.

  When we moved from one rental to another this past fall, we went from a seven year relationship with Kootenai Electric Cooperative to Avista. I was shocked at the jump in our energy bill. Now we’re in the process of closing on a home of our own, and I’m afraid we’re stuck with Avista for better or worse.

  Isn’t there any sort of protection against monopoly pricing when it comes to public utilities? It seems like there should be. A painful rate hike resulting in record earnings does seem a little obscene. A healthy dose of competitive pricing would solve the problem, I’d think.

  I’m sure it’s more complicated than I understand.

• 

  zelda on February 18 at 1:55 p.m.

  Avista has a bloated corporate infrastructure. I’m not talking about the physical equipment; I mean the number of highly paid employees at HQ including the bonus barons. I’m not uniformly in favor of people losing their jobs, but you have to consider that most of the HQ people have worked at Avista at least 20 years, have gotten raises every year, and are well into their 40s or 50s. Attrition is very low, so their payroll dollars keep rising and rising as do their pension costs. It’s a huge fixed cost; something that most publicly traded (non-utility) companies fix through RIFs in administrative departments. Besides paying unjustifiably high energy bills, it seems we just can’t escape the omnipresent Avista. They’ve got at least one employee on every influential non-profit board in Spokane. The PR spin is relentless as their communications department is staffed with former TV news people. In fact, I suspect that current TV news people go easy on Avista because they know it’s the only place to work if they get laid off by their station and want to stay in Spokane. When the power goes out, the news organizations act as if Avista is the sole provider of wattage. They seldom take the time or trouble to call Vera, Inland Power or Modern Electric. It’s like, “In the beginning, there was Washington Water Power and WWP begat Avista and it was good.” It’s time for Avista to move out of the era of licking their wounds from the Tom Matthews days when they had to cut the dividend. I know that many retired folks depend on Avista’s yield for income, but whatever is gained from the steady dividend is eaten away by surges in gas and electricity rates. It’s a net loss for shareholders and for the Inland NW.

• 

  Incognito on February 18 at 2:51 p.m.

  Wasn’t the Public Utilities Commission investigating Avista for the recent rate hikes?

• 

  Jessie_Wuerst on February 18 at 2:52 p.m.

  I wanted to share a couple of ideas for your consideration. I work for Avista. Our company has served this area for nearly 120 years. Our employees live and work in the same communities where you live and we pay the same utility bills that you do. Last year our company gave over $1 million to our communities and none of it was from customers. Every dollar a customer pays is reviewed audited and approved by one of the three state utility commissioners that regulate all that we do.

  Our earnings - profits, if you will — is the money that is left after paying millions of dollars to keep the power and natural gas reliably flowing to your home and business when you flip the switch or want heat or hot water. Earnings are reinvested in our company or they’re used to pay a return — dividend — to shareholders who have invested their money in Avista, just like when you put money into a savings account in a bank and expect a return — interest on your deposit.

  Our company – like the other 69 investor-owned utilities in the U.S. — relies on shareholders, as well as the ability to borrow money, to supplement the revenue from customers to keep the energy flowing. Katrina is right, a utility is a very complicated business.

• 

  DFO on February 18 at 3:08 p.m.

  Jessie Wuerst; hat tip to you for throwing your 2 cents in here. I always appreciate a different perspective on controversial articles. You’re welcome to stick around and comment on other topics of local interest.

• 

  zelda on February 18 at 4:46 p.m.

  Utilities *are* complicated, as are credit default swaps, commercial paper markets, collateral debt obligations, securitization and many other financial matters. Please spare me the corporate boilerplate about keeping “the power and natural gas reliably flowing to your home.” That’s a utility’s basic function. Yes, Avista’s contributions to the needy are commendable; however, no corporation is entirely altruistic. The people administering the corporate responsibility programs are, I’m sure, honorable folks. Truth be told, though, most social-responsibility programs are done to placate the NGOs and keep ‘em off the backs of corporations.

  The excuses Avista served up during the 2000-2001 “energy shortage” — power-sucking server farms, the famous bottleneck transmission line on the Oregon/Wash border, ubiquitous use of computers, low snow-pack in the Sierras, the Salmon Recovery Act — turned out to have a simple answer: Enron. Can you blame us for being suspicious? I’m not saying that Avista was in on the scheme, but I also remember that the one utility in Washington state that really took the time to dig into that mess was Snohomish PUD. A publicly owned utility.

  My view is that when the AG’s office gets involved in questioning rate increases, something is up. As a voter, I expect the AG’s accountants and attorneys to sort through the complexities of a corporation’s balance sheet and P&L. They evidently think the rate hikes are worth investigating.

« Back to Huckleberries Online

• ›Scanner traffic