3 days Ago By Jason Knowles
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The I-Team has an update Thursday about concerns over a new charge on gas bills. There is a more than $5 fee affecting Peoples Gas residential customers. Commercial property owners say their new fee is $52 a month.
The fees are to help pay for a program which keeps the heat on for those in desperate need. While everyone agrees that programs like these are important, some are asking why they are footing the bill. "I called Peoples Gas, and said, 'you all must have messed up the decimal point,'" landlord Sara Diaz said.
Diaz rents out a three-flat in Humboldt Park. She was in disbelief when she saw a new charge on her Peoples Gas "small commercial" account for the building for $52.72.
It's a $52 fee for a $58 bill. "It's crazy! Like who would ever think, I want to meet the person who thought this was the way to do this," Diaz said. Diaz and other people who own commercial properties and businesses called the I-Team about the "small commercial" charge on bills, after they saw the recent I-Team report about a new $5.
27 fee for Peoples Gas residential bills. Both fees are for the same "low-income discount rate" program, to help those in need. "We are balancing property taxes; we are balancing repairs," Diaz said.
The fee funds assistance for customers whose incomes are at or below 300% of the federal poverty level. Those who qualify could get a 5-83% monthly bill credit. "So, it's a really unique program," said Dan Schneider, with Legal Action Chicago.
Schneider helped the Illinois Commerce Commission with the plan that puts similar fees on bills from all natural gas companies. It was done after state legislation required the Illinois Commerce Commission to make all gas utilities find a way to provide discounts to customers with lower incomes. "So, not only are we discounting people's bills who most desperately need the discount, but we're allowing more people to access existing benefit programs," Schneider said.
He said those other programs, which rely on state and federal money, have been strained, as energy costs continue to soar, and as bills have gone up at Peoples Gas, to help fund its "pipeline replacement program." "We're talking about chipping in $5 to protect hundreds of thousands of our neighbors from not being able to heat their homes ," Schneider said. The residential and "small commercial" fees are much lower on other gas company bills.
Peoples Gas says it did not determine any of the fees and that the ICC did. They said the state agency ordered them to give larger discounts than other utilities. But the ICC said that's because "Peoples' overall rates are higher than" the other gas companies.
Peoples Gas also says its monthly fee is higher because its customer base is the city of Chicago, which has more people with lower incomes. The utility also says it advocated for an approach that would have put less burden on customers. Diaz said she doesn't know what she would do, if she has to pay the fee every month.
She said she is fighting her charge because she said she doesn't provide gas services to the entire building. The I-Team also found that many large businesses, using a significant amount of gas, could pay almost $2,000 a month on their Peoples Gas bills..
