Elders Seek Cap On Hikes In Phone Rates

In January, America’s old and disabled who are living on Social Security will receive a cost of living increase of 2.1 percent.

Also in January, the Washington Utilities & Transportation Commission is expected to act on US West’s request for a residential phone rate increase of 28.6 percent.

“You be the judge,” invites Ross Boreson of Spokane. “We have a 2 percent increase on one hand and a 29 percent increase on the other hand. Is something cockeyed here?”

Such a hike, says the president of the Senior Legislative Coalition of Eastern Washington, would devastate the elderly poor and low-income disabled.

“For them,” says Boreson, “a phone line is literally a life line. Many are barely subsisting now on Social Security and they already face startling hikes in rates for a host of other utilities and services.

“There’s no way,” says the head of the all-volunteer senior lobby, “that the money can stretch - especially in Spokane, where wages (the basis for determining the size of a person’s Social Security check) are now and historically have been very low. In Spokane, let’s not forget, we have the highest poverty rate in the state.”

Essey Wolfrom of Gig Harbor is the American Association of Retired Persons’ chief spokesperson on phone rates. “If those of us just scraping by have to pay one-third more for basic residential service,” she said, “something will have to give. For many, it will be food. Others will stop buying medicine.”

The average Social Security recipient’s check next year will go up $16. US West wants to boost monthly phone bills by $3.

“It’ll be tough for me, even though my income is more adequate than some others,” Wolfrom said candidly.

A retired social worker for 30 years, Wolfrom says, “I have seen up close the damage to lives that comes from not having a phone. For the low-income elderly and disabled, a phone is the only way they have of keeping touch. It’s the key to mental, emotional, and physical health. The key to life.”

Boreson, a retired banker and former economist for an oil company, reports the average Social Security check runs about $785 a month for an individual, or about $1,100 for a married couple. “Obviously,” he adds, “a great many are far below that average - especially in Spokane, because of this area’s very low wage levels.”

But, for all that, his coalition doesn’t seek a special lower rate for the old. “We know that a lot of low-income working poor also need affordable phone service as well,” Boreson says. “So we want to cap residential rate increases at the same rate as the annual increase in the Consumer Price Index.”

Civic activist Frank Yuse of Spokane favors an opposite approach. In testimony at a recent commission hearing, Yuse advocated granting the company’s request if it will give low-income seniors who qualify for property tax relief a break on phone rates.

“It can be done very easily without more bureaucracy and cost,” Yuse said in a later interview. The law now allows home owners 62 or older whose income does not exceed a certain level to apply to the county assessor and qualify for a partial deferral of their property tax payment.

“I proposed that US West receive notification by the assessor of those who qualify and that the company give these persons a reduced rate,” Yuse explained. “I am concerned that many seniors are unable to pay not just higher phone rates but higher water and sewer and trash pickup rates as well.

“I also would require an audit to see that money from higher rates went into upgrading the local system,” said Yuse.

But Seattle attorney Ron Rosemon, AARP legal counsel in this rate case, argues that only last year the commission found that US West had earned $90 million too much. The company was ordered to give it back. The company didn’t, and appealed the ruling instead.

“Now,” says the attorney, “the company wants to increase residential rates by $56 million, reduce business rates by $17 million, roll back toll rates by $34 million, and decrease access charges by $33 million. Stockholders will be a lot better off. Consumers will be a lot worse off. Service will still be terrible.”

, DataTimes MEMO: Associate Editor Frank Bartel writes on retirement issues each Sunday. He can be reached with ideas for future columns at 459-5467 or fax 459-5482.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Frank Bartel The Spokesman-Review