12/17/2014 (3) - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

City's General Fund. This is well below the average and the median for Florida's other municipal utilities. As shown on Attachment A, of 32 Florida municipal electric utilities, only 5 utilities transfer less than 6 percent of their revenues to their general funds, while another 6 also transfer at the same 6 percent rate as Vero Beach, and the remaining 20 utilities transfer at rates between 7 percent and 26 percent. Accordingly, the magnitude of the City's General Fund transfer cannot be said to be unreasonable by any standard, and certainly not relative to the standard articulated by the Fifth DCA. With regard to the Town's and County's assertions that they may evict the City from their rights-of-way (or from their geographic limits altogether) , the City firmly believes that this issue - who, as between the Town and County, on the one hand, and the Florida Public Service Commission, on the other, may say what utility serves what customers - belongs before the Florida Public Service Commission. In the Grid Bill, the Florida Legislature expressly gave the PSC the exclusive and superior jurisdiction over service territories, and over the "planning, development, and maintenance of a coordinated electric power grid throughout the state of Florida" and the "responsibility of avoiding the uneconomic duplication of facilities. " Public Service Comm'n v. Fuller, 551 So. 2d 1210, 1212 (Fla. 1989) ; Fla. Stat. § 366.04 (5) . Further, the PSC has exercised its exclusive jurisdiction with respect to the City's service area by approving the territorial agreements through its Territorial Orders. As discussed briefly below, the City believes that the referendum provisions of Section 366 . 04 (7) , Florida Statutes, do not apply to the City. Notwithstanding the City's position, however, as a gesture of good faith to address the concerns of its customers, the City has authorized its Staff to work cooperatively with the Town, the County, and other interested customers toward holding a referendum and toward developing an ordinance to establish a utility authority with geographic representation to "operate the business of the electric utility" as contemplated by that statute. The City's Interests The City of Vero Beach endeavors to provide reliable electric service to its customers at the lowest reasonable cost, consistent with maintaining reliability, operating its system in accordance with good utility practice, and, like most municipal utilities in the United States and in Florida, earning a reasonable return on its investment, which the City's Electric Utility transfers to support its General Fund. The City's service is highly reliable; in fact, the City's service is better than Florida's investor-owned utilities by virtually every standard reliability metric. 10 0