Dive Brief:
- Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has filed a complaint against utility Commonwealth Edison's latest rate increase case with the Illinois Commerce Commission, accusing the utility of wrongly using customer bills to cover staff bonuses.
- ComEd had filed to increase customer rates by $3 a month beginning next year to cover $275 million in 2013 power delivery costs.
- $87.9 million in employee benefits was included in the costs. ComEd has 6,000 employees.
Dive Insight:
In her filing, the attorney general states that state law forbids ComEd from including "incentive compensation expense that is based on net income or an affiliate's earnings per share." ComEd employee bonuses are determined by the share price of the utility's parent company, Exelon.
ComEd has yet to respond to the filing. The utility's rate increase request is its fourth annual increase designed to cover the expense of rolling out a wide-scale grid modernization program. The current request is mainly to cover the costs of smart meter installations for customers, due to be completed in 2018.
