-: Thank you for your patience.
(energetic upbeat music)
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-: And every other...
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-: Help customers through those programs to get
through this COVID crisis.
And we'll talk a little bit
about the energy efficiency programs
and how some modifications were made
to the program delivery in these times.
And then finally, I'll just make a note
that we have internally a process whereby our staff
are collecting data from the utilities
on customer energy usage on both the electric
and natural gas side as well as disconnection metrics
under collection and under collectibles metrics,
a variety of metrics that are of interest
to the Commissioners, so that they can monitor very closely
the status of these issues, and they're being provided
those reports internally on a bi-weekly basis,
and that informs them and ensures
that we have a good dialogue with the staff
that are tracking those issues.
Next slide, please, this slide basically just emphasizes
what we all know, which is that the COVID crisis is real,
it's serious, and it's having a substantial impact.
And therefore so many things in our economy
are being oriented around adapting to this situation.
Next slide, in April of 2020,
the Commission issued resolution M-4842
which directs the energy, water and communication companies
to apply customer protections for up to a year
through April of 2021.
The resolution places a moratorium on gas
and electric disconnections of residential
and small commercial customers
from our payment until April, 2021.
The utilities generally require some customers
who pay bills late or are disconnected for nonpayment
to re-establish credit by paying a deposit.
Which can be up to twice the average monthly bill,
and the utilities may also assess late fees and interest.
The resolution orders, the IOUs
to suspend these practices for one year.
Payment plans are an important tool for preserving access
to utility service for the customers
that are struggling pay their bills.
So the resolution orders the IOUs to provide payment plans
with an initial payment of no greater
than 20% of the amount due.
And then with equal installments for the remainder
of not less than 12 going cycles.
For those customers who currently have service
but then subsequently go into an arrearage,
the utility is required to offer a payment plan
with an initial payment and no greater than 20%.
Again, with equal installments for the remainder
of not less than eight growing cycles.
A customer who's offered a payment plan,
shall not be precluded from paying
off the arrearage more quickly,
and interest on the balance shall not accrue.
So these were some of the payment plan protections
that were included in the resolution.
In addition, the resolution ordered the IOUs
to support low-income residential customers
by freezing standard and high usage reviews
for CARE customers for at least one year.
Also it required the IOUs
to increase community outreach, to increase enrollment
to raise the assistance limit amounts
and to suspend CARE and FERA program removals.
The hiatus on requirements for customers to recertify
or complete post enrollment verification
and bill discount programs has been
the most impactful measure for increasing the accessibility
of CARE and FERA during these times.
And finally, the resolution directed all energy, water
and telecommunication companies
to enhance their public outreach
on the additional production measures they're taking
in response to the crisis.
And this outreach builds off of prior direction
that the PUC established requiring certain utility
communications what I did to disasters.
And these requirements to do more public outreach
encouraged the utilities to do so in multiple languages,
and multiple delivery formats
to reach a wide range of customers.
Next slide please.
Back in April of this year, the PUC hosted a workshop
with the objective of seeking input on the challenges faced
by industries focused on customer oriented,
clean energy programs during the COVID crisis.
And to identify possible solutions there.
There was a panel that looked at the challenges
that were faced by the industry during COVID,
and there were a number of different learnings
that came out of that, and we learned that there
were difficulties getting into homes
to do behind the meter work or delays in inspections,
cashflow issues for contractors and difficulty sourcing,
personal protective equipment and inability
to do in-person outreach in the San Joaquin Valley pilots
that are ongoing.
On that panel as well, we heard a number
of different major highlights and themes,
that there are varying restrictions across the state
on construction activity, and that that's hard to track,
and that Statewide organizations are looking
to see the PUC provide more regulatory guidance
over the utilities consistently across the state.
That some municipal permitting processes have moved on
to online formats easily but others have not,
and that in some industries we're seeing significant layoffs
and furloughs and pay cuts and having significant impacts.
The second panel had to do with brainstorming solutions
and among the proposed solutions were ideas
to provide incentives upfront, extend product deadlines
align them with more realistic construction timeframes,
conduct virtual inspections and use digital media.
In implementing new solutions,
the parties discussed the importance
of the total rate impact of any relief mechanisms
and to ensure virtual outreach
reaches low-income customers as well.
As a result, the PUC staff worked with this information
and used it to in follow up to the workshop
and engage with the IOUs on their plans and put into place,
some of these recommendations that were made by parties.
And among them were to do more expanded outreach
informing customers of their energy savings opportunities
that are there for them.
Also, there were some measures that were taken
to implement work arounds and extensions
for carrying out certain programs,
such as the self generation incentive program
and energy efficiency programs
that traditionally require face-to-face interactions.
Next slide please. (clears throat)
So on the electric side there is something
called the high usage charge which applies
to residential tier grade customers
with very high electric usage that exceeds 400%
of their baseline quantity.
And they're intended to be a price signal to
and encourage conservation for those customers
that have extremely high electric usage.
But there was some concern that due
to the stay at home orders,
people would be consuming more electricity
really without any ability to manage that,
and that that would then cause them to go up
and to be HUC usage rate levels
that would then cause significant bill impacts.
So in May of this year the PUC issued the decision 2005-13
to temporarily reduce the high usage charge
for the three large IOUs, from the 75% level
of the tier two price to a 25% of the tier two price level.
And this was done to provide a measurability
to the customers, starting in June of 2020
through the end of October.
Later the PUC extended that price reduction
so that it remains in effect
until the PUC's executive director,
tells the IOUs to return the high usage charge
to its original levels.
The PUC also adopted two decisions,
one in April for PG&E
and for Southern California Edison.
And again in may for the smaller utilities, Liberty
and Pacific Corp to mitigate the effects
of increased residential electric bills
when the pandemic started
by taking the California climate credit
for electric residential customers
and advancing those payments so that
they were received earlier in the year
during the summer months when bills
were expected to be highest.
And so for PG&E and Southern California Edison
they received their fall credit split between the months
of May and June and the Liberty customers received
their fall credit in July and Pacific core customers receive
their fall credits split between June and July.
There were some other measures that were taken
for San Diego gas and electric customers.
The PUC delayed an increase in core commercial
and industrial bills on the gas side through December 31st
of this year, with the resulting accrued under collections
to be paid by that same customer class
and amortized over two years, beginning next year.
And for San Diego gas electric customers,
PUC melded differential from tiered rates
and the residential default time of use rates
was reduced to help manage them bills.
Next slide.
Another major provision action that was taken was
that the Commissions marketing campaign,
the energy upgrade California brand and marketing campaign
was reoriented to communicate to Californians
about additional ways to save energy and reduce bills
while spending more time at home during the pandemic,
in April, we quickly pivoted the messaging
from broader energy saving tips for residential
and small business customers
to focus on residential customers
spending a greater amount of time at home.
And this was done through a combination of TV
and social media campaigns that were launched initially
in April and have been ongoing since then
Next slide.
The CARE/FERA and ISA programs are designed
to provide a support to assist low-income customers
to pay their bills, and the PUC encourage the IOUs
to support low-income and vulnerable populations
through marketing to increase the enrollment
and accessibility of these programs.
And this was done through the utilities doing significantly
more marketing and signing up our customers
getting more enrollment, there was also a all party meeting
for the CARE program that was held on May 22nd
to discuss additional strategies for outreach
and data sharing, and we will be seeing a presentation
from Emma Johnston later in the workshop
that will cover some of the program enrollment numbers
that we've been seeing as a result of these activities,
have PUC also directed the utilities
to offer a 60 day advanced payment
to contractors implementing the ISA program,
which is a weatherization energy efficiency programs
for income qualified customers.
Shelter-in-place orders forced a hiatus on on-site work
that made up the bulk of the ISA program,
and 65 ISA implementers and contractors excepted
over $42 million in advanced payments
for labor and non-labor costs during the program suspension.
The IOUs also temporary are also temporary allowing
a self-certification of income via an affidavit.
Next slide, some actions that have been taken
on the energy efficiency program side,
one is that most of the programs they typically require
a face-to-face contact, and this was suspended
around March of this year,
and that suspension was subsequently lifted
in May and early June of this year.
The programs have transitioned to onsite inspections
now with technical assistance and audits, training,
and evaluation activities,
moving to virtual platforms when possible.
They're also offering higher rebates
for certain measures and programs.
And all of the energy efficiency program administrators
are required to file new business plans by September of 2021
because of the COVID-19 crisis for a ruling in July.
Next slide, please.
So turning to the topics of the day this workshop
will explore basically what has happened
in the energy sector, since the workshop that we held
in April, what has changed, what do we need to be aware of?
And so that we can be informed as to what potential actions
to the PUC may need to take to respond to that.
Also how our customers have impacted as shown by the data
and as heard through customer contacts
that are contacting the utilities and the CPC.
We're also gonna be looking at what will be the impact
of lifting the disconnections moratorium in April of 2021
and what innovative solutions from other states put this
you've used to explore to help customers in this time.
Next slide please.
Just a walk through of the agenda, so our first segment
is treating the basically an assessment
of current customer impacts.
At 9:30 we'll be looking at some of the data
and what the data is telling us.
And then at 9:50, we'll have a panel to hear
from panelists about what we're hearing from customers based
on their work with customers and what are some
of the key trends and insights that are out there
that we should be aware of and potentially responding to.
And we'll then turn to Q&A and take a break.
And then the second segment will be
on identifying potential new actions that the CPC could take
to address customer impacts, beginning at 11:00 am
with current California policies.
And then at 11:10, we will have a panel to get ideas
about what's going on in other states
and with other utilities,
and panelists may address other states actions
that they're taking to protect customers in this time,
and we'll learn from what's going on in other states.
And then we'll go to Q&A with the audience
and that will wrap us up for the day.
So with that, I think it's time now to turn back
to the remainder of the workshop agenda.
Thank you very much.
-: Wonderful, thank you Simon.
And I also wanna recognize that we have
(indistinct chattering)
with us as well.
So that's wonderful as we move into our next segment
where we're all first hear from Emma Johnston
on what the data are telling us the impact
to customers from COVID.
Emma: Thank you,
I think we can move on to the next slide.
Great, so my name is Emma Johnston
and I'm an at the CPC, and I'm just going to be going
over some broad trends that we've observed
since the beginning of the pandemic in March,
we can go to the next slide.
So these are four broad trends that we've seen
across the forum large IOUs.
So that's PG&E, Southern California Edison,
SoCalGas and STG&E.
So the first is that residential customer energy usage
has increased which you already talked a little bit about.
The second is the enrollment
in our bill assistance payment programs has increased.
The third is that customers are having larger
and older arrearages, and the fourth is that the number
of customers with bill payment arrangements
has decreased overall, we can go to the next slide.
So this is the first trend
that residential customer energy usage has increased,
so for both electric and gas, we've seen an increase
in residential customer energy usage and a decrease
in commercial and industrial energy usage.
So there's been less pronounced increase for gas,
just we've been in summer months
in a more pronounced increase
for electric for residential usage.
And this is comparing March to September, 2019 energy usage
versus March to September, 2020 energy usage.
And we can go to the next slide.
So this is just another way of looking
at that same information and this plot 2020 electric usage
versus 2019 electric usage.
So a percent increase would be above that gear align.
And we see that for residential CARE and lawn care
for all months from March to October,
there's been an increase for these customers
in electric usage, starting with the beginning
of the pandemic and people staying at home
and working from home and going to school from home.
And then we see a decrease.
So for all, and in commercial customers
we're seeing their usage has decreased
and they're below that zero line.
You can go to the next slide.
And then this is this information for gas usage
to the percent increase for residential customers
has been a little less pronounced
but for most months from March to October,
you can see those lights green dots
are residential customers and they're above that zero line.
So we've seen a percent increase for gas usage,
and then a percent decrease for commercial
and industrial usage.
We can go to the next slide please.
And then, so this is the second term that we've seen
which is that enrollment
in our bill payment assistance programs
that are income qualified has increased.
So for CARE, we've seen an 11% increase in enrollment
from March to September, 2020
which represents about 507,000 new customers for CARE.
For FERA we've seen a 41% increase in enrollment
from March to September, 2020 which represents
around 22,000 new customers for FERA.
So FERA had been under enrolled historically.
So it makes sense that we're seeing
a larger percent increase for this program
than we are seeing for CARE because our penetration rate
or the number of customers that are enrolled for CARE
is a lot higher in months that are not COVID month
just in regular normal quote unquote normal time.
And another important thing to note
is that we've suspended some of the recertification
and enrollment requirements for both of these programs
which could also help explain some of that increase,
and then we can go to the next slide.
So this graph shows the percent of residential customers
that are enrolled in CARE, broken down by each IOU.
So you can see that since March, there's been an increase
all four of the large IOUs,
and that dotted line shows the increase overall.
So first of SoCalGas, we can see that the increase
has been most pronounced as well
as first Southern California Edison,
and then PG&E and SDG&E below that.
But there's been an about 3% increase overall
in this percent of total residential customers
that are enrolled in CARE from March until September,
we can go to the next slide.
And then this graph just shows the percent change month
over month in CARE and FERA enrollment since February of,
so since the beginning of the year
and you can see that there's a pretty large spike
in April, especially for FERA.
And then there was another spike in August for enrollment.
We can go to the next slide please.
So this third trend that we're seeing
is that customers have larger and older arrearages.
So for this slide, we are comparing the number of customers
with their arrearages by a not owed,
and we're looking at September, 2019 versus September, 2020.
So we used the same month to try and cancel out
for other factors that might be affecting this.
So this graph on the left-hand side,
you can see that overall the number of customers
with the arrearages in September, 2019 versus 2020
has not actually increased,
there's actually been a slight decrease
in customers with arrearage.
And this information is broken down by amount
is kind of hard to see because you can see the bulk
of customers still have that $500 or less in arrearages.
But then when we take a closer look at the graph
on the right hand side, which breaks down the percent change
of customers with certain overages announced
in September 2019 versus 2020,
we can see that there's been a substantial percent increase
in the number of customers with these issue,
especially for that over $500 in every urge amount.
So for example, if we zoom in on the fact that
for CARE and FARE customers the number of customers
with over a thousand dollars in arrearages
has increased over 400%.
So I think this kind of just shows something
that we probably already are aware of, which is the fact
that the economic impacts of the pandemic are having
the biggest impact on customers that were already
in lower income brackets at the beginning of the pandemic
or prior to it.
And then these statistics at the bottom of the screen show
that, so just how many customers that represent.
So until the percent increase for CARE and FERA
and the number of customers that represents
those combined categories, and we can go to the next slide.
So basically this graph shows the information
that I just described in the previous slide,
but broken down by each of the four IOUs.
So you can see that there's a common trend
for all four IOUs that you're seeing the largest increase
in that 1,000 to $2,000 and over $2,000 categories
for percent change in arrearage amount.
And this is again, looking at September 2019 versus 2020.
You can see that for the less than $500 in arrearages.
The number of customers, there's actually
going to percent decrease in customers
with that lowest on arrearage.
We can go to the next slide.
So instead of showing the total number of customers
with the arrearages is vicious,
so the outstanding dollar amount,
so the outstanding customer balances owed to all four
of those IOUs for September, 2019 versus September, 2020
for the left two columns show how much money was owed
that was aging one month,
so one month old and outstanding balances
the second two columns in the middle so aging two months
in the right to column and show aging three months.
And you can see that the largest increase
has been in those arrearages that are three plus months old.
So the arrearage amounts are older than they were in 2019.
And this is again looking at a snapshot
of what we where we were at in September, 2019
versus September, 2020 year to date.
And we can go to the next slide please.
One more thing we wanted to know is that, so the resolution
that provided emergency customer protection for residential
and small commercial customers, did not cover medium
and large commercial customers.
So there are on medium and large commercial customers
who haven't paid their bills
and have not arranged a payment plan,
and are at imminent risk of disconnection.
We estimate that there are probably six to 7,000 medium
and large commercial customers
at some risk of disconnection, so not in the net risk
but at potential risk of being disconnected in the future
if they don't enroll in one of those payment plan.
We can go to the next slide.
So this is the fourth and final trend,
which is that across the utility.
So on the aggregate, the number of customers
with bill payment arrangements has decreased overall
since the beginning of the year.
So this shows the customers with three plus months
bill payment arrangement, and you can see that
at the beginning of the year there are
around 160,000 customers
on these longer payment arrangement plans.
And then in September,
it's dropped down to around 97,000 customers.
And this is the trend,
the trend like aggregated across the utilities,
but we're gonna see a little bit of a difference
when we break it down by utility.
I guess, so the utilities are sort of speculating
that this might be because of the disconnection moratorium
and the fact that people's power
is not going to be shut off,
there's less of an incentive to enroll in one
of these bill payment arrangements despite the fact
that as we saw from some of the previous slides,
people's arrearage amounts
are really pretty quickly increasing
in those larger original categories.
So this could be sort of like an impending problem
if it's not addressed.
And then we can go to the next slide, please.
So this shows the percent increase in customers
with those longer bill payment arrangements
and it breaks it down by IOU.
So you can see it's a little bit different
a little bit different, by IOU and that for SDG&E
and for SoCalGas we saw a pretty large increase
at the beginning of the pandemic and customers
that were seeking out
these longer bill payment arrangements.
And then it's sort of leveled off
for all the utilities since then.
We can go to the next slide.
And this information compares...
So the previous two slides were sort of showing
what the percent change has been,
it's just the beginning of 2019, I mean, 2020, sorry.
From here and this information shows
how our 2020 information data compares to data from 2019.
So you can see that for SDG&E and SoCalGas
sorry for STG&E and in Southern California Edison
there's actually been a pretty substantial increase
in the percent percent of customers with those three
plus month payment arrangements for 2019 versus 2020.
But then there has been a decrease for PG&E
and for SoCalGas because PG&E has the highest amount
of customers is what's sort of driving this trend
of seeing fewer customers
in these long payment arrangements.
And then we can go to the next slide.
And then we can pause for questions now,
we have utility experts on the line too.
There'll be able to answer any utility specific questions
you might have, and we also have energy division staff
better subject matter experts in this than I am
that we'll be able to answer your questions.
-: So, hi, this is Amy from energy division.
So let's open it up to Commissioners
if you have any questions on the data,
please feel free to unmute yourselves and ask your question.
-: Okay, this is Commissioner Guzman thank you very much
that was really helpful and very concerning.
I had one comment and then a question one was just
and I know that Ben is gonna be speaking of this,
but I did just wanna clarify for folks
that some of the interim protection have been made permanent
particularly that provisions on reconnection fees
and deposit fees are no longer required at all.
So those are not contingent on the order.
As well as the payment plan duration, and that 12 months
has to be offered for a customer
can be disconnected moving forward.
So I just wanted to make that point,
now I know it'll be made later.
A question for Emma, which is,
I think at one point I heard you say
that the increase in CARE participation was only 3%.
And I also heard you say it was 11%
and maybe ask you to clarify.
-: I think I must've made a mistake it's been at 11%
of, Oh, actually I see what I see what you're asking.
So the percent increase in CARE enrollment has been 11%,
which is 507,000 new customers but 3% represents the fact
that I think that at the beginning of the pandemic,
around 26% of all of our residential customers
were involved in CARE, and now around 29%
of residential customers are enrolled in CARE.
So overall for all of the utility customers,
there has been an increase of those
like three percentage points more...
-: Year over year?
Is that a year?
I see, so does that mean there was a dip in enrollment
pre COVID and then we gained 11% year over year to 3%.
-: The 3% is just that, so across residential customers
it was 26% of all residential customers
were enrolled in CARE, and then now it's 29%.
I can also check in some of these questions
if there are more specifics and she's a subject matter,
expert on CARE and FERA.
-: Okay, no, that's helpful actually
because it's a growth rate versus an overall rate.
And I've been looking at that growth rate,
I thought it was overall, so really in some sense,
we really have a net 3% participation in CARE.
-: Exactly, yeah. -: Thank you.
-: This is Genevieve...
-: Cliff, you can ask the question first.
-: Go ahead Genevieve
-: Okay, thank you.
First of all, thank you for the presentation.
Very, very insightful, on the number of people who are
that there are less people on the payment plan.
And I see that one of our panel members
asked the question as well as far as,
do any of our subject matter experts know
why are there less people on the payment plan
and is there a minimum 20% payment to get onto the plan?
Or how does this comport with the proceeding
that we had adopted out in terms of the handling arrearages?
Any explanation as to why are there less people getting
onto a payment plans?
So I'm probably gonna pause
and let a subject matter expert answer that question.
Again, I kinda like to note that,
so that increase that decrease in the number of customers
that have gotten onto a payment plan has really been driven
by just choosing utilities.
And then for the other two utilities
there's been an increase in the number of customers
that have gotten on the payment plans.
So the decrease that we're seeing is from PG&E
and SoCalGas, which is driving down the total number
of residential customers on payment plans.
And then we've seen an increase for SDG&E and S&E
and talking to PGD&E utility representatives
they think that the reason is the answer
that I had given previously which is that because
of the disconnection moratorium,
there's usually what sort of like prompts the customer
to get onto a payment plan is that disconnection notice.
And since the disconnection notice, is it being sent out,
they don't have that reminder or sort of prompt to get
on a payment plan, but if there's a subject matter expert
on the line, that's able to answer that, thank you.
-: Yeah, thank you.
I think that, I thought I saw Marlene from PG&E.
Marlene: Okay, I am not the subject matter expert
on credit, but we do have the credit expert on the line,
but I do believe it is a functional what Emma just said
that we have seen a much lower volume of calls going
into the contact center since the COVID
and the moratoriums went into place.
In addition, I see Lorenza says that he cannot unmute,
so I'll go ahead and answer, what we are in the process
of doing now is creating the letter that will be sent out
to the customers who are behind who have growing balances
and to make them aware that their accounts are behind
and providing them with some resources that they can access
which includes payment arrangements if they choose
to contact us and get on that payment arrangement
extended period arrangements as well
as heavily promoting the LIHEAP program.
I recently chatted with Jason about this
and we will be having Jason review the letter
before he goes out, as we will be promoting heavily
the LIHEAP program and all the other payment assistance
that customers can access from PG&E.
-: Thank you Marlene, thank you.
-: Can I ask a question?
-: Yeah.
-: I had a question that CARE and FARE enrollments it looks
like we had a pretty significant uptick in February,
March, April, early months, it's been continuing to go up
at lower amounts but leveling off over the summer
and early fall, maybe we should add
within Steve utilities this as well.
Do we have an expectation that it's sort of reached a point
of market saturation or do we expect more enrollments
this part of it, depending on whether
or not unemployment runs out stimulus payments run out,
or where are we, do we feel like we got, you know,
most of the customers who were in need of assistance
with this early wave of outreach and other changes
to the program, we feel like there's another,
they got untapped potential,
or is it just that we're waiting to see
if the other shoe drops in terms of economic impacts,
if you have a sense of that.
Marlene: This is Marlene from PG&E.
Thank you, that's a good question,
Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
At PG&E, we have seen the penetration rates go up
from 97% of the eligible customers up to 108%,
which is where we are at and where we had forecasted
that we would be somewhere by 106%
of the estimated eligible population by the end of the year
simply because we are not removing anyone from the program.
And with a heavy marketing that has been done
using both traditional
and non-traditional marketing channels.
We have seen certain promotion known channels really deliver
very strong drive, very strong response,
such as the digital Google marketing
if somebody searches for EBT or CalFresh
that it will pop up an ad about the CARE program.
So we're trying all these new channels
and they seem to be working well.
We do expect that we will continue to see a little bit
of growth, maybe getting up to 109%.
We have also seen in our FERA enrollment
that's gone from 13% pre COVID to 21% at present.
So we do expect to see, but we think the majority
of the customers who lost jobs
have a definite would be gone to get the message
and have been enrolling.
So we expect to see a taper off even though
on aggressive marketing will be continuing, thank you.
-: Thank you Marlene, that's helpful.
Maribel: Martha, this is Maribel.
I don't have any questions,
this has been enormously helpful and as you said earlier,
somewhat difficult to see some of these numbers
knowing full well that our fellow Californians
are really suffering, so thank you,
very good data and good information.
And I told Commissioners have asked clarifying questions
that I had in mind, thank you on that,
3% I was concerned about the same thing, Martha so.
Thank you, and I'm looking forward
to the further presentations.
-: Okay great, thanks president Batjer.
So Jillian, can you move on to the next slide please?
Okay, so hi everyone, I'm Amy Mesrobian,
I'm a supervisor in the CPC energy division
and I'll be facilitating our first panel
of the workshop today to look at
what we're hearing from customers.
And we will have four panelists joining us here today,
Carla Remigi from the CPC consumer affairs branch.
Lourdes Medina from the florist Huerta foundation.
Kathy Andry from the California Department
of Community Services and Development,
and Val Martinez from Redwood Community Action Agency.
So let me ask all of the panelists to please turn
on your camera then, and let's get ready for our panel
and please keep yourself muted when you're not speaking.
So first, so each of the four panelists is going to give
about a five to seven minute overview presentation
and then we'll open it up for questions
and answers at the end of that.
So first I will turn it over to Carla and next slide please.
-: Good morning, everyone.
My name is Carla Remigi,
I'm a nail was supposed to be at first branch.
You're the PUC was the same thing,
a second an overview context related to the core
of the conference we received in CAB,
from the period of March 15th through October 17th,
which covers the current COVID report
that we've been putting out to the Commissioners.
This will be an emphasis on the compact related to energy.
Next slide please.
Okay, very quick overview of what
the consumer affair branch is, in essence is a let's say,
it's the face of the Commission when it goes to humor
has a problem with their utilities issues
with these items providers, CAB receives context
from the consumer, both in phone and in writing.
And just as a verification, the context that
we're receiving CAB are called informal contacts.
And those that are forwarded to the utilities
for solution are cold and portable complaints.
When a consumer issue falls under the jurisdiction
of the Commission, the normal processes for phone contacts
the consumer is transferred as we call it warm transfer
to the utilities executive office, and the consumers is less
than the capable hands of the utility and is instructed
if they do not gait able to look
on a satisfactory resolution,
they should contact the customer service branch in writing.
There is normally no followup from CAB for phone contacts.
During COVID or COVID related context,
to specify what the color related context an hour for us
the process was changed to make sure that were follow-ups
from CAB to the utilities requesting the update
on the solutions, so we'll keep track of the resolutions
and the dispositions of this, everything,
I'm sorry, phone contacts.
For reasons, risk and context for CAB can take up to upwards
of 30 days for a resolution,
for those written comments that were received though,
identify as COVID related.
They were fast tracked instead of submitted
in through the normal channels.
They were immediately forward to the utilities yet
either emails or phone calls and followups phone calls
were always placed within few days just to make sure
that there was a resolution,
so we could keep track of those phases in particular
In addition CAB made a very extra effort
in helping mostly non-jurisdictional issues
to just implant a cable, we had a lot of humorous contact
at the beginning contacting us with regards
to municipalities and CAB made an extra effort
to send the providing information to the consumers
to the appropriate places where they could get this help
that they needed, next slide, please.
Okay, the effect of COVID in the contacts
that we have received in CAB is very obvious.
They have been a sharp decline.
We can safety to say that I thought 40% declining customer
contacts to CAB from the same period March to September
of two programs, sorry, of 2019 when comparing,
there has been a sharp decline about 40%,
and we can safely assume that the consumer protections
that are in place are the main reasons for this decline.
For example, for communications, the moratoriums
for lifeline, there has been a 50% reduction in contact
from lifeline when due to the elimination for requirements
or recertifications of independence.
For energy, we can also simply assume that also
the reduction has been done due
to the protection set in place, because while we assume
that if the consumer is not receiving
the disconnection notices they're not getting
the 15 day notice of the 48 hour notice,
there's no reason to contact CAB, so next slide please.
So the COVID related 19 context,
what does he mean to CAB in our reporting?
CAB counts all payment arrangements and just connection
for an a payment context that we see as COVID related,
whether the customer mentions it or not.
The same thing is for outages, and I'll get to in a moment
of why outages are so important.
Well, the categories that I'm not, I'm sorry
Oh, the categories do require an active statement
from the consumer saying that they have a problem
to the pandemic, to COVID-19 or a virus,
whatever way they want to refer to it.
They have to be an active mentioned for those cases
to be included into the product 19 related accounts.
Between March 15th, when we started reporting in the 19th
which was the last report, caviar received, or identify
as 17,740 to be covered related context,
communication a counselor 50% of those contexts
in energy for 39% of those contexts water only
has received 3% of the cover related context.
And my apologies from the chart, somewhere along the line,
I lost my legends, the bar chart indicate
the energy related context and the line chart indicate
the total quarter related contacts,
is what you can see how they really want to another,
next slide please.
So what are we hearing from the consumers?
The early start of the thing consumers mentioned concerns
about the high bills due to high consumption
because you stayed at home about the peak time
time of use higher rate.
And it would like to have the race
to be the same doing the whole day
while there were shelter in place,
was doing this requested that the baseline allotments
be recalibrated to allow for higher consumption
to understand home, and do it powdered outages consumers
were worried about losing food or refrigerator medications
because there have been stockpiling due to COVID-19
and not being able to go out as often
to get supplies and consumers express a lot
of frustration with the timing and duration.
So planned outages or otherwise, which were interfering
with working from home and distance learning
in consumers also another thing that we heard was
where a consumers protested,
there were some plan rate hikes during the pandemic,
next slide please.
So the effect of the pandemic under type of context
that we received, how has always received contacts
about high bills and the need for payment arrangements,
extensions to avoid disconnections for non-payments
and the help with restoring the service
as a result of non-pay.
CAB has not perceived an audible difference
in the type of consumer context for our sisters
due to COVID-19 other than on a set,
where there were more concepts from customers
who have lost their jobs and were concerned
about the inability to pay their bill.
We did not affect a big change in the context
until the end of the moratoriums,
when the bills come to you, next slide please.
All right, the top energy context related
to COVID-19 CAB categorizes,
the type of contacts that we receive
in some discreet categories,
and the bulk of the context are outages.
They comprise about 47% of the contents
that we hear with you related to COVID.
Again, I'll get back to auditors in a moment,
payment arrangements comprise about 16% of the cases
that we receive a disconnection current payments contexts
have declined considerably since March
as you can see on the graph, as they're represented
with a line, I'm sorry, the blue cost.
And they have, like I said, they have the client
since March, but unfortunately we still received complaints
from consumers being there that they're in danger
of the service had been disconnected.
And I learned to give a couple of examples on that,
one of the examples, one of the reasons why
customers are contacting CAB, believing that
they're going to be disconnected,
we're getting few contacts from Edison consumers
because it appears that even though they adhere
to the moratorium guidelines
of the lenders connecting consumers,
consumers are still receiving notices
that don't clearly reflect the change in policy.
I do know that they have received the bills do stay
that they have passed you amounts which leads to consumers
to believe that they're going to be disconnected.
We do understand that Edison is working
with the CPOC regarding that,
I believe they have mentioned something
about their system not being able to accommodate the change
or Yeah, to eliminate the language
that they're going to be disconnected,
and they're adding extra language in the back of the bill
or somewhere trying to educate the consumer about the fact
that no notice, and they're not going to get disconnected.
Another reason why we getting people contact us
regarding disconnections, and this is,
I believe is mostly in the PG&E territory.
A few consumers I hesitate to say a lot but a few consumers
call us because they have been victim of a scam callers,
we'll try to convince them that they're about
to be disconnected because of past due amount.
And that it's very just start being in my opinion industry,
just that the consumer benefit from a campaign
to make them aware of the different types of scams.
So they're not just doing this time,
but also just the at old times,
because that seems to be very prevalent
that we get people who actually fall from the scams,
or just call us to confirm whether they are going
to be disconnected, or they know they're not going
to be connected and they call us to clarify or confirm that.
Next slide, please.
Amy: And you have about just one minute, Carlos,
thank you. -: [ Yes, okay, okay.
Okay, why outages are important?
And there are definitely important, CAB reports all outages,
that is context related to COVID
because of the direct impact they outages now,
not only when something at home but working from home
and we see really a report on outages,
PSPS as well in black house, and that's where you see
that big spike in August because there
was a rolling blackouts or were mandated due
to the heat wave to California, so I meet August.
Can I have the next slide please?
Okay, and the last slide on this,
lastly, if this is a breakdown by the top utilities
we're seeing the highest number of complaints
as you can see is the usual, the, you know,
the four top utilities has received 95% of the complaints
and all other utilities will have four or less contacts
mostly have just one contact related to COVID.
So that was it from me, thank you very much.
And you have the questions,
will address them at the end of the panel.
Amy: Great, thank you so much, Carla for giving us,
giving us the lay of the land in terms of the types
of customer contacts we receive at the CPC.
Next, I'm gonna turn it over to Lourdes Medina
to give us her perspective from what she's hearing directly
from customers in her work, Lourdes.
-: Yes, good morning everyone and thank you for this space
and for all the work everybody's putting forth
to ensure that Californians, you know,
have an opportunity to survive.
Not only this virus, because I myself was the fact
that the last three weeks I've been fighting COVID
and I'm getting to talk to participants
and community members who are scared,
not only of the consequences that the sickness brings
but also the social impact that has on them economically
and in society, unfortunately,
and as being treated just like,
and the Spanish speaking community
is just like hearing that you guys be HIV.
So it's unfortunate because that brings
a lot of social stress.
So I've been able to work with the Dolores
went to foundation now for three years and in the community,
so the central Valley I've been involved for 23 years
and unfortunately these local media,
and also community based organizations I've always seen
in my work and trashed my information enough to ask me
about what's going on with what a moratorium means.
That was the first interesting fact
that I found in the community that even if you know,
the state issues information or in the news
they say about this moratorium for that to be disconnected,
they still not aware of how to deal with that data
or that information, they don't know how to address that,
and the questions I posted a community one was, you know,
about the programs that we have with the CARE/FERA
and medical baseline in most of the community members
that I took a sample from, you know, about 75% were aware
of the products and I'm asking them to
if they have used some more currently use,
I would say 75% of them were in taking advantage
of those programs.
However, the ones that still were on those programs,
the question was like, if they weren't on it, why, you know,
some of them fell right at the cusp
that they had to be sending in their paperwork by January,
I guess, for the renewal.
So maybe they fell off then, and came back in has been more
of a challenge because there's some more
of a waiting time, I guess, to address the reapplication
or to check if they are on,
until we went into look at their bills, is that I was like,
no, you are fine, but then they didn't understand
the increase of usage hours and peak hour.
You know, they didn't understand that.
And I had to take time to explain to them that you know,
that during the day we have different hours.
The field working community like in agriculture,
their working hours had always been not on peak hours
because they wake up three in the morning, you know,
get everything done, by six in the morning,
the kids who are out to school.
And now the increase of these community members,
their bills have gone up higher and in fact, and more
because now the kids are there and one parent has to stay,
now, cooking is literally like 24 hours a day, per se.
Unfortunately, you know, the use of distance learning
has made them feel very, very pressured to make sure
to keep the energy bills on, so they were borrowing money
and now whatever funds they were given if they even qualify
for any state or federal funds, they use them right away
to pay their utility bills as they fear not being able
to have their kids safe at home.
So maybe another issue with the presentation
that I heard earlier about, you know,
less people getting on payment plans,
it's because most of these people
these are the ones that I spoke,
didn't understand what it would mean that a moratorium
is in place, or that they're on that gonna be disconnected.
So they don't trust that, so they're might as well,
you know, pay for those bills and stay
without maybe a CAB payment or without an insurance payment.
A lot of this community members mostly women,
express, you know, the stress of having to communicate now
to their usual partners to help them
when they didn't have money for energy bills,
they have all mostly expressed to me
that they were never offered more than three months
for a payment plan and or given the option.
One participant she even told me,
she even asked to ask her supervisor or the supervisor
to see if they could stretch that payment out,
four more months, because a meeting that, you know
the minimum payment they had to make
to make the payment arrangement was not a possible one,
and she straight out just told them out of frustration.
"I have five kids at home,
unfortunately my husband's in jail now
and in danger of deportation and you can not disconnect me,
you cannot disconnect me.
I'll send what I can, which is $75 or this is what I can
I'm not saying I don't want to pay,"
for her to have to get to that expression of, you know
private information and insensitive at that
because you know, she is undocumented,
it was very hard for her.
So for me, that broke my heart that they would have
to be put in that position.
So I asked her, you know, well, on your bill,
do you see anything that tells you, you could get help?
She says, "I called those numbers, I called those numbers
and this is what it was always stated to me,
this is the way it is, how much you have to pay.
And this is the kind of payment plan you have to do."
So I think that the customer CARE part you know,
to increase to a point yeah, we are more sensitive
to understand that people who have are years
from prior to COVID, you know I have a different experience
to approach for finding help with assistance
on getting their bills paid, and also there is new people
that have senior citizens that had never had
to do energy bill assistance because they usually
do cover it with a little bit of social security
or pension money they had.
Now they have increased the family members because of COVID,
some of their grandkids who are college students
had to come live with them
because they didn't fit in there parents' home,
so now their senior citizens are found
with higher utility bills,
because they have more people at home,
and they trying to look for help, found it more troubling
and hurdling, I guess you would say,
to find assistance with mighty programs that they felt
that the community based organizations
they have never addressed them.
They don't know the lingo or the, you know, how things work,
and obviously they probably are not as tough
as poor people have to put up with a lot in customer service
when they're looking for help with their bills.
Whereas someone that has never used a system
to for assistance, it's a little bit more sensitive or more,
I would say like, how would I say, well,
you know, that we're not used to it,
so we were used to being consumers who pay
and we have a right to ask for you to treat us right.
But when you're asking for something,
I think that they don't know how to address that
so most of them express frustration with it being able
to communicate and not be hurt, I kind of have that.
It felt like they would be hurt
by the way they're being treated by those people
who could possibly help them with a bill payment
or assistance to pay it off.
So this is where we're at, it's unfortunate
you know, then enrollments, as I was looking at your charts
was very interesting to me,
especially because I would like to see data to this.
It reflects, okay, we had a hundred calls, a hundred calls,
we got 10 people who were able to make
an payment arrangement plan
or that was what they were calling for.
And that maybe they were deterred from me waiting
on the payment plan because they could not meet
that minimum payment.
So I think everybody's work, and I'm glad that California
has such a system to be able to dialogue
and work something out because coming months
is gonna be tougher, as part of what they call
the third wave of this pandemic.
And we have to look forward to that.
Now it's gonna get even stronger
because we have to be in inside, I mean, new Fresno,
it 10:32 in the morning, you know
so we're gonna be seeing a lot more issues
with them being charged more and having less power
to understand how to find help.
And then to the last point I really wanted to make was
that I feel that IOUs need to be more aggressive
in helping us all California understand
peak hour usage, lots in the tiers
like they were mentioning, you know,
people who are even on solar energy, like not views,
they're still affected by these charts,
and if we don't understand like layman's terms
what that means that we're not gonna be able to conserve
or save money, so even if we're on CARE or on FERA,
or any of the other programs.
Thank you, Amy, for this opportunity
-: Yeah thank you so much Lourdes for sharing those stories
directly from customers and for letting us know about
how sometimes it's difficult for customers
to kind of understand the information
or the programs that are out there.
So thank you Lourdes, and next, I will turn it over
to Kathy Andry with the California Department
of Community Services and Development.
Thank you Kathy. -: Thank you, good morning.
I appreciate the opportunity to be part
of this workshop today.
Just wanted to provide a brief overview of the department,
talk about some of the data we're seeing
from our customer contact
and talk about some key partnerships, you know,
that we worked with in response to COVID.
So with that, I can go to the next slide.
The department of community services and development,
we oversee the administration
of the federal low-income home energy assistance program,
you've heard it called LIHEAP.
Today and in July, I just wanted to mention
that we also received CARES Act funding
that supplements the LIHEAP program as well.
A lot, your program provides an array of services
to help low-income families,
better manage the financial burdens
of their home energy costs
and overcome energy-related emergencies.
Some of the services we provide is financial assistance
to help pay their or help offset or energy bill,
we also provide weatherization services
to improve the energy efficiency of their homes
and we provide emergency services
such as preparedness education services,
we recently implemented providing
battery power backup devices to help minimize the impacts
of the public safety power shutoffs,
and we also provide repair services to appliances
that made threaten the health and safety of the customer.
The LIHEAP grant funds that we do oversee are very limited,
we're only able to serve about 6% of the eligible population
on the annual basis.
And we do work closely and administer these funds
through a 41 nonprofit and local government organizations
throughout the state, we refer to them here as LSP
as local service providers
and you'll hear me say LSPs for short.
Last year, the LSP network provided lots of services
to over 223,000 low-income households.
If you go to the next slide I'll just touch
on some data point.
Since March CSD, we have seen an increase in the need
for LIHEAP services across the state.
The first data point is a number of calls
that we have received from the public,
seeking services, seeking LIHEAP assistance.
As you can see in the first graph, starting in April
we saw an increase of about 31% in call volume
and CSD call center in comparison to last year.
And you'll see, in July we saw the largest increase
of about 67% increase in call volume
in comparison to last year.
The second data point in the graph is illustrating the calls
that we have been receiving from households indicating
that they have been impacted by COVID.
And you can see between the two data points
that definitely confirms that between May and September.
Well over half of the callers seeking information
for LIHEAP persistence are, were, you know
directly related to COVID or a financial impact
due to the pandemic.
I just wanna say that this data is specific
to CSDs call center and calls to our LSDs
may show different trends, which you may hear
from Val here in our next presentation.
I also wanna mention too that at CSD
we have seen a definite increase in the foot traffic
to our website with a majority of visits,
looking for information on utilities assistant,
next slide please.
And just wanna touch on some key partnerships that centered
on contributions to how you know, CSDs response
to the COVID crisis, CSD first partnership with our LSPs
in the energy council.
Our CSD consistently engages
with our LSPs concerning elements of local planning
to promote effective program administration,
and keeping with this a CSD did convene some meetings
with the energy council, which is an advisory body to CSD,
which is a representative of select LSP members
to help inform us in our decision-making
when we did receive the CARES Act funding
it also needed adjustments to the regular LIHEAP funding
that we are so oversee.
Through these conversations CSD and LSPs were able
to accomplish an accelerated implementation
of the CARES Act program and provide a program framework
that extended services to as many impacted households
as possible especially in light
of the state's high unemployment rates.
We also ensured that, you know, program operation resiliency
at the local level by providing resources to our LSDs,
to purchase personal protective equipment
to also adopt safe work practices,
to ensure that the workers and the customers
that we serve are safe.
And we placed an emphasis on essential services
or utility assistance and emergency services.
Next slide, please.
Another key partnership was our interactions
with the investor owned utilities,
and other state utilities.
Around July, we convened some meetings
with the state utility reps to, you know
discuss plans for implementing the CARES Act program
and to provide implementation overviews
of our regular annual LIHEAP funding.
Definitely these meetings more informative
you know, made us a better understanding
of how the utilities were responding to the COVID crisis
with these establishments of moratoriums Statewide,
also better understanding of customer changes and behavior,
which you've seen quite a bit of data already
on how they're managing their utility bills.
How they're you know, how usage has really gone up due
to the shelter in place orders.
And also, you know, being made aware of suspension
to you know, utility weatherization services.
We also got input from utilities on adjustments
to financial assistant benefits for CARES,
and we identify opportunities where we can work
with each other, any companies to further assist
in the outreaching from LIHEAP
to low-income utility customers.
For example our CSD and PG&E,
having engaged in an innovative marketing campaign
under a data sharing agreement between CSD and a PG&E
PG&E is been providing customer information
to our LSPs to provide direct marketing LIHEAP services
to customers with higher arrearages.
We just recently implemented this outreach effort.
It's a little bit premature to understand
the customer's response to the outreach
but we definitely see the strong potential
and having this customer information
to make very direct targeted outreach to help
you know, those customers exhibiting the great need
which you've definitely seen through the data
in preventing disconnections.
We do encourage that the other IOUs, our partner with CSD
and LSPs to provide similar customer lists
for this direct marketing outreach.
Another thing I wanted to mention was CSD
has developed a LIHEAP outreach digital toolkit
that does contain down messages to promote LIHEAP.
The LIHEAP the outreach tool kit was made available to IOUs
and absence to the Ellis teen network
as an outreach resource as well.
Next slide, please.
The third key partnership is with the in May of 60
and the CTC entered into a MOU memorandum
of understanding to enhance coordination
to help reduce energy burden of low-income customers
swept state reduce the amount of utility disconnections
and create an energy resource Statewide.
Through this MOU, the CSD and CQC,
we've made some improvements to the way
that I use our handling, the LIHEAP our payments also,
you know, pledge processes to prevent disconnections.
And we strengthened collaboration between the IOUs CSPs
and LSPs, to ensure the online portals
that are currently being worked on,
and also working on, you know,
the new arrears management plans, the percentage
of income payment plans to ensure that they deliver on
you know, their useful and full potential.
But in closing, I just want to say as the impact of COVID
and pandemic continues and persistence to be understood
it is essential that our continued coordination efforts
are gonna be necessary.
We need to, you know, continue to work together, you know
strengthen our IOUs, TST, LSPs to ensure
that energy access for financially challenged
is very coordinated in that we provide
you know, all available resources to the customers.
And especially when you know, that more touring now,
even more so now there'll be a great need
when the more tornadoes are lifted.
So thank you, look forward to the questions
when we get to the Q&A session.
Amy: Great.
And with that we're gonna turn it over to Val Martinez
of Redwood Community Action Agency
which is one of the local service providers or LSP
that Kathy was just mentioning,
and that will give us a little bit of a deeper look
into actual interactions with customers
via the LIHEAP program.
Val Martinez if you wanna unmute yourself.
Val: There we go excuse me, next slide please.
So be the role of the local service providers changes
in customer interactions since COVID.
Providing some information on customer feedback,
energy use and their ability to pay the bills,
and touch slightly on the pilot
that we're participating with CSD and PG&E
to target services for customers with high bills.
Next slide please.
So Kathy did a good job of describing
the local service provider network or LSPs,
and we are a variety of different types of agencies,
community action agencies, private nonprofits,
local governmental entities, and our role really is
to provide outreach education and enrollment
for eligible low to moderate income households
for the program, and we coordinate these services
with the IOUs and the state to maintain,
essential home heating for eligible households.
We also work with the IOUs and non-regulated
utility companies to purchase the essential heating fuels
and make payment arrangements for client's energy bills,
including a large number of past due bills
that are held on arrearage, you assist these clients
with the planning of, and making payment arrangements
to prevent termination, and we coordinate services
with the LIHEAP program, in some instances in the past
we've also had to require that our clients make co-payments
in order to maintain those services.
So it's changed a lot though, since COVID,
so next slide, please.
So Redwood has now changed the way
that we deliver our services,
we're primarily mail in process right now.
Whereas in the past 40 years, it's all been direct contact.
We've had to implement these safety precautions
to protect ourselves and the public.
We no longer hold our weekly outreach
and education workshops in the office,
or handle large volumes of clients coming into the office
with shut off notices for help.
We can no longer implement a robust outreach program
which we did a lot of work throughout the entire year,
going out to local reservations Rancherias,
remote communities, senior housing decks,
we went out to where the people needed to help them most,
but that now has all been changed
because of the advent of COVID.
We now have to limit the number of people coming
into our office to initiate services
because of social distancing and the fact
that we have a very small office.
We're now finding that we actually have to go out
and reach out for these folks rather than having to go out
and wait for them or go out and do our outreach services.
So it's really changed the way that we do business.
Next slide please.
So the number of people calling and I thought
that was really interesting cause CSTs experience
at their call centers very different,
our experience with the advent of COVID
and the shelter in place orders are called
into our office that drop by 80%.
And I actually think it was closer to 90%,
I think my staff, when I asked them this question
we're thinking more into current rather than the past.
Because as the joke goes,
it was like crickets in the office.
No one was calling, no one was coming in,
everyone was staying home, clients were more focused
on the virus and we were afraid to go out,
they were afraid to even go out
and gather the required information
or complete their applications,
which has really slowed down the process.
Initially it was partially impacted by the fact
that governmental offices and the places
where they could normally go and get the information
that was required to complete their application
and verify their income were closed.
Now they're up and running, but there's still
that fear of going out and in some parts
of California as well, there's huge spikes
in the number of cases that are occurring
and people are very much afraid,
we're no longer getting the calls from sister agencies
and local level, referring people with a shut off notices
to us because of the moratorium,
and this used to take place frequently,
we worked a little bit in tribes, we worked
with Indian Tanach, who was the South clinics
programs, welfare department would send people to us.
We have a lot of strong collaborative partners
that provide us leads, clients are aware that
they're not getting shut off
but they're not quite making the connection
with the moratorium, but the net result
is they've stopped worrying about that bill,
next slide, please.
-: So the virus, as I mentioned on the top of everyone's mind
and these we're hearing this over and over again,
that along with the wildfires,
and we had a number of wildfires in our County this summer,
and that was tracking throughout California.
So wildfires the virus, the uncertainty, the teacher
people are really kind of hot in the cross
was they really don't quite know what to do.
We have a growing number of clients who are now
starting to contact us with the change in the weather,
it's getting colder.
Laura has mentioned the fact that there were down
in the 30s and Fresno were in the 30s and humble
in Eureka, which is unusual for us this time of the year.
Cause that's pretty cool pretty early.
But they're worried about their energy bills,
they're worried about rent.
We are getting quality about water bills
and we are seeing about 30% new people into our program.
People who previously didn't come to us,
whether it's because they're underemployed or unemployed
or they now they find themselves
in a position where they do you need help,
they're calling us, the majority of the clients
who are calling though as I mentioned,
they're not really aware of the more 20 per se
or the fact that it's going to be expiring April,
and so they're really not prepared to deal with the gyms.
Some of the clients say they don't know what to do
and they have no plan,
I was listening to a senior home specialist
who works primarily with clients who are 70 and above
and home-bound, I was listening to a conversation she had
with a 93 year old lady and the woman called
she was getting fives and stuff.
She had a bill, it was a couple months old.
She wasn't sure what to do.
She was worried about what her future health held,
she said, "I don't really have a plan on calling you
for help, 'cause I just don't know what to do."
And that's kind of consistent with people
who are calling us.
Basically, the many of the households that was she
she this as a respite period the people notice
that they're not getting shut off notices.
And some of these people are using this time
as a bill balancing tool, they're paying off some
of their other non-energy bills that are critical
like rent so they can't afford to pay,
so they're doing that.
They're looking at other bills that need to be paid,
right now because PG&E is not shutting off in our area
and they're not issuing shut off notices,
that's seen as something that can be put in a bay
and we'll deal with that when they have to deal with that.
So one senior referred to it as a breather,
this is giving me a breather.
And when you're living on SSI or social security
or fixed income tasks, and you're doing everything
you can possibly do to pay all your bills
to keep your family safe, to keep your family close
and housed during this time and try to have a decent life.
It's hard to keep all the bills covered.
So this period has been used as a breather
by all the populations, generally speaking.
And so many of these households to dealing with it,
but they're putting it as bands and they know
that they'll have to deal with it later.
Roughly speaking though, even with that said
by half the population that we're serving right now
are viewing this as such,
but are still trying to make payments.
They may still have those arrearages, but they're trying
to stay current with their bills.
Our education with them is if
you're gonna make payment arrangements
or if you're gonna have these bills
you make your payment arrangements,
pay what you can don't offer the payment
for them what you can in order to make them feel better
or to make the utility company feel like they're gonna
work with you more if you can pay more,
make sure that you pay your bill
make sure that you pay it on time
and make sure that you're consistent with it
and that you can afford it.
But like I said, 50/50 path say they can go ahead.
And they're trying hard right now
to make their bill payments.
As the other half are just letting it slide.
And as one person put it they're riding the wave
until they have to do.
And that's kind of what's happening right there
that we're seeing out in the field
and to that in to try to help people with their arrearages
next slide, please.
We're working with PG&E and the state of a pilot project.
Redwood was one of the agencies who volunteered
to be part of this, and we've received a list
of about 317 clients, and we're targeting from that list
finance with bills that are $2,000 or less.
Other 317 clients last bill was $40,
highest bill was $20,000, 991 and 2 cents.
Now that's an outrageous amount.
So 77% were below 2016% were a below 4,000
the balance or within that higher range.
Some of these folks in the higher range
I don't know how that's ever going to be like that,
but we'll see.
Our goal is to work with the people
that we can afford to help, through either combination
of payment plans, combining the energy programs
that we currently have CARES and our regular LIHEAP
soon we'll have the 2021 LIHEAP.
Our goal is to get them out of the hole,
we wanna make them whole so they can have a fresh start
and try to keep up with bills as they come along.
Our clients, as I mentioned earlier educated stay current
on the bill, them it's going to be lifted,
so you need to be mindful of that.
The breather periods going to inches a day of the wave.
And if you make a payment plan,
make sure you've been for it, make sure you pay it.
I think that this is a very helpful approach,
I would recommend this expansion with a few changes
to improve its success.
One of the problems that we have,
and I was really interested in hearing earlier
about the scams, because my clients
are staff received this list.
But to my knowledge there was no letter
from the utility company, introducing the fact
that we were going to be contacting their customers
and that they had provided a list.
So we started calling, there was a great deal of resistance
and people were hanging up on us
'cause they thought we were one of the PG&E scammers,
and they didn't really want to listen to staff
or participate in the program.
So we're able to convince them that this is not the case,
we still are finding that there there's a slowness
in returning paper work and there's not that,
even though they're in a high bill stress situation,
there's still a bit of slowness to the turnaround
and getting the information in.
So I think that it'd be really important
for you to at least communicate the more twine lift
that will be coming, the fact that, you know,
they wanna work with some, who wanna work
with the local service providers and help them get ahead
of a wave and that this is a legitimate program
and that they should be working with us to help
in a speedy manner to get out of the situation.
One of the things and I would offer in terms
of improving its success,
we had one client who had a very bill.
She was on a paperless payment program,
so she hadn't been cheating, a bill and everything was email
and it just totally went by her.
And I think she had like a $4,000 bill.
So in her mind, she wasn't getting built,
so she didn't have a bill to pay.
So even with the paperless people I think that they need
to do something, some prompts after silver rush
to help them keep this in mind
in order to combat the things from slipping out of hand.
So I think that would be that,
and there's a couple other suggestions.
One of the things I mentioned earlier in the chat was that,
people who can't qualify for CARE currently
because the bill is not in their name
I think the Commission on the utility should consider
something the effect that will allow them to participate
in those programs.
And the last thing I like to offer,
I strongly recommend the formation
of an ad hoc stakeholders committee,
comprised of representatives of the IOUs state,
the CPC, the LSTs access which is a Statewide association
of network of energy providers involved
in these utility programs, Cal capital,
which is a Statewide association of action agencies
and Fern as others to assist the low-income customers.
So working together to come up with a proactive plan
to head off, or at least find some way
to mitigate the impacts of the impending lift
of a moratorium, and the sooner that we can
do something together, the sooner we can come up
with some solutions that will help lower that impact.
So those are my comments, and thank you.
-: Great, thank you so much, Val.
Thank you so much to all the panelists for your remarks.
We just have a few minutes, so I actually want to open it up
to the Commissioners for any questions that you might have.
-: This is Commissioner Randolph.
I have a quick question for feeding that's been provided not
by the IRS like propane and other providers,
Do Lourdes serval have any indication
whether those service providers are making any efforts
to work with their customers particularly those who may be
on the edge of qualifying for LIHEAP,
but may still need some assistance or some, you know,
flexibility with regard to payments to refill their tanks
or other other needs.
-: Not to my knowledge.
To my knowledge the way that
the non-regulated utilities work is essentially
in my opinion, a five, there, there are no rules.
There are no regulations that guide how they're talking
to other sister agencies who work with those populations
that are serviced by kerosene propane, that type,
it's up to the individual service provider meaning
the local utility, how they wanna run it.
I've heard some are really great to work with,
I've heard some horror stories.
Even within my County, I have several service providers,
several easier to work with other,
all of them are aware of us, and some of them
have actually been working proactively
to send their customers to us,
to ask us about CARES funding when the CARES funding
was coming into place, if we can help their customers
a second time during the year.
Many of them have the customers at heart,
and they're really concerned about them, but I'm not aware
of any special programs that are being made available
to them and that others are equally concerned
about their livelihood,
and I think that's a valid concern as well,
but I'm not aware of any special programs,
or extensions of private that are being offered.
-: This is Lourdes, I would agree with Val.
I actually had two people out in the really Orosi area
which is mostly where they harvest oranges and so forth.
And they use the propane off the gas company.
The customer service itself to try to find some assistance
or programs or any help they could give,
to the client Ms. Sarah, like, no, they got to pay.
And I almost felt like we were being bullied into nowhere,
she could borrow money or she could find something
that you gotta pay, there was no lineage
or any consideration or even human quality
to that conversation, it was very upsetting.
And we actually had to do a little fundraiser
between friends to help that, so that they would not
be disconnected from their propane.
-: Yeah, thank you for that information.
That's definitely sort of a gap
in our state regulatory framework
that we don't have the ability to deal with.
-: And the other one would be the water and partly,
or the city of partly or not only was the way
of paying for it, more difficult because a lot
of the community members didn't have credit cards
or debit cards or bank cards to be able
to make that transaction.
Some had some people borrow their card,
so they went and bought, you know,
the temporary credit cards, or I forgot what they're called
but they would end up losing money to dating, understand
that the card came with an annual fee or something,
I don't understand myself.
And so that was upsetting because they would lose
their money and trying to pay for their water bill,
and then they're part Parlier, they're not Indian at all.
They were disconnected 501, and if they hadn't already paid
I don't even know how they moved so fast.
But I guess I dunno, it's upsetting about those utilities.
-: Yeah, we've also had experienced in some other areas
where the water bill and the energy bill are tied together
so you could get terminated for one,
and it would affect the other.
We've seen that on a number of communities
throughout California, fortunately,
I don't have to deal with it in my community,
but there has been a growing concern about that,
and there has been some discussion on the federal level
of coming up with a water equivalent to LIHEAP.
And there's been some discussion with the water association
on initial discussion between them
or community action association about the potential
of discussing some type of water LIHEAP type program.
And I would encourage the Commission to talk
to the water folks and if that's appropriate
and encourage them to do so, because that affects everyone,
and particularly the low income people
who are marginally employed or unemployed at this time
because of the virus, I just want to add one more comment,
and that was a Lourdes (audio distorting) and that was,
we're seeing more and more multi-generational families
coming to us for help, people who lost their jobs
or the parents or the grandparents.
In our case mostly grandparents are bringing
the younger ones back into the house
because they're afraid of the children getting the virus,
and they would rather protect them
and suffer through hardship than risk losing family members.
And we're seeing that more and more in our community.
-: This is Commissioner Rechtschaffen.
We are very much focused on those efforts
to try to get more assistance to the water customers.
And yeah, we tried to get LIHEAP provision into federal law,
both with other water utilities here
and through the national association
of regulatory Commission, excuse me,
their efforts to try to influence federal policy
in that direction, we don't know how likely that is
but certainly something that's very much on our radar.
I had a question for Kathy, could you give any more detail
on the number of customers that you provide
to battery assistance to?
(phone ringing)
-: You know, I don't have that data in front of me
but I do know that we started the program earlier this year
sort of, you know, before COVID efforts were put together
to start a program, the pilot program to start distributing
you know, battery power, backup devices to customers.
But I certainly can get that data to you,
it's in the early stages,
I know that we're providing support for that,
and I know that also teaching is piloting a similar program
with some LSPs at their level as well.
So I never had it through the pilot.
You know, we're just trying to gather information
because we have learned is definitely customer education
is key, so the customer understands how to use the battery,
the fact that the battery, you know, is really intended
for those essential needs
to keep their medical devices operational
during the shutoff events, and so just trying to ensure
that you know, there's follow up to make sure
that they understand, you know, how to use it,
how to charge it.
-: If I may add a comment to that, we're participating
in that pilot, both on the teaching PG&E side
and on the state side, we've installed about 75 units
into the PG&E pilot project,
we have another 50 units we'll be installing
under the state program.
And I wanna thank Kathy and the state,
and then we've expanded the program
to also include air purifiers because of the high smoke
and all the problems with the folks are having
with the air quality being so poor as a result
of the fires we're working
with Hoopa Valley Indian front of it.
This time we're going to be doing outreach this week
installing air purifiers of the homes of folks of COVID
and as well as those folks who have been identified
as having high risk of respiratory issues.
But I think Kathy and the state for allowing us
to expand the program to include that.
-: Thank you Kathy.
(indistinct)
-: Yeah absolutely, thank you.
-: I just wanted to add something I've thought of
so we're speaking and looking at the presentation
that Nam customers are gonna get their bill
at the end of the year, most of the ones that I know of,
will be getting them this November and December.
So I don't know how that is going to be looking
if we're looking at that data to come in in some way
of how solar clients who are Nam,
I still don't understand all that stuff
but how's that bill gonna look, you know
because where they rely on so much that they were on solar
and they don't generate enough energy there we're
at peak hour usage with their regular IOUs.
So that's going to be kind of tremendous too
to see how we're going to be reach out to those customers.
-: Thank you, this has been very extremely helpful.
I first wanna thank Kathy for level-setting us
and reminding us that even with our optimization
of partnering with CSD were only able
to meet 6% of the customer need.
And I guess for me, that reinforces the need
to really have a focus on the payment plans,
and the partnerships with that we can facilitate
between utilities and their customers.
And although LIHEAP is a for sure, lifesaver for many folks,
it's really critical for us to do what we can
within our jurisdiction.
And that number is actually much smaller
than what I recall it, so it is another reality check there.
And I'm interested in your thoughts on what you envision
with the ad hoc stakeholder committee.
I think, you know, one thing that was said by Lulu
which is concerning is this notion that there's still
the utilities are still requiring a down payment
for participating in a payment plan
which is no longer allowed the utilities certainly can try
to negotiate that as part of their payment plan,
but it's a customer can not do that,
they must still be offered a 12 month payment plan
at minimum, again, before disconnecting of course,
with the (indistinct) and that's not an option.
So there's all these incidentally,
I think this is another reason why we need
a very clear citation program because as these rules
are evolving we need to make sure
they're all being implemented,
uniformly across the utilities.
But you know, this kind of a situ situation
where maybe an ad hoc committee can trouble
you know, be kind of the area for working
to these inconsistencies.
-: I would agree so, I strongly believe that
there's the opportunity here, I know the recent discussion
the energy council was CSD, the director,
chief director as well as Kathy,
discussion focused on how do we deal with this,
I know there's discussions that are taking place
between PG&E and SSD as well as the other IOUs
and the discussions that we're having are great.
But I think that the third leg of the stool now needs
to be part of the discussion that theme, the LSPs
and other stakeholders, such as term, who work closely
in this organization who work closely
with the target population.
And some of the things that we can learn from that I think
can be extended out to the larger population
and inform the policies and inform how the implementation
of the programs take place in communities
throughout California.
But I think those discussions it's timely situation,
we find ourselves in and I think we need to move on it,
sooner rather than later.
Some of the things that we find can help inform
the Commission as well, and I think the Commission certainly
holds a position where you have information
that can help us, I found the report earlier
from the Commission's staff was excellent,
I heard a lot of different things that could help us,
and I think even though we can serve 6% of the population
for years, one of my good friends with (indistinct)
who's the executive director of project goes
and serves (indistinct) County talks about the fact
that we are essentially working as the credit
and collections department extension
for the utility companies, as such, we're dealing
with payment plans, we're dealing with payment arrangements
we're doing with the customer, we're educating them as
to what's taking place and how they need to work
with the utility, don't be afraid to call them,
make sure that you can afford et cetera.
So if we're looking at extending a PIP program or something
like that, perhaps we could look at doing
is building a pilot project that combines us as the credit
and collection are and helps develop policies
or program prototypes that would make sense,
and that would be in the best interest of both the IOUs
as well as the customers.
So I think there's that potential,
but I think it won't happen unless we can sit down
and have a discussion, and as a good friend of mine says,
work outside the box because there's no box, the only box
that exists is the one that we created.
So let's just blow that concept up
and see where we can go from here.
-: Thank you, I think that's a great note to end on.
So thank you so much to our panelists, Carla, Lourdes,
Kathy and Val for your really great insights today,
and thank you to Emma Johnston and (indistinct)
for doing a lot of the data collection and the data analysis
for the first presentation that we heard today.
We are going to take a two minute stretch break,
so if everyone can please reconvene at 11:03,
we will have our second panel start at 11:03.
And just a reminder to audience numbers.
If you can please use the Q&A feature
if you have any questions as we go forward, thanks everyone.
-: And to set the table for what new protections
against disconnections customers will have access
to as a result of this decision.
Broadly speaking, I think of these policies as falling
into two buckets which I'll try to flag
as we walk through the policies.
The first includes direct customer protections
meaning policies that prevent an IOU from disconnecting
a customer who would otherwise be eligible
for disconnection, and before this most recent decision
most PC action in this area had addressed this bucket
of protections by creating classes of customers
that utilities cannot disconnect
and moratoria on disconnections altogether.
The second bucket includes specific assistance to customers
to help them afford their new monthly bills,
providing discounted service as a baseline level
or direct payment assistance.
And this aims to reduce disconnections
by minimizing the accumulation of new arrearages due
to customers being unable to pay.
And that also includes assistance to customers
to help pay past arrearages like
through traditional payment plans
and also the new arrearage management plans
which we'll talk about in a moment.
So next slide please, so first step
the decision renewed and expanded a cap on disconnections
by utility territory initially implemented
in the previous decision
in the disconnections proceeding back in 2018.
And that decision, the PUC directed utilities to set a goal
of limiting disconnections to no more than a 2017 a map.
This was a 2018 decision.
So 2019 was the first year in which the was active
and all IOUs met that 2019 goal of maintaining 2017 levels,
and this is a good example of a direct protection
against disconnection, although it is only a goal.
So there isn't a direct punishment
if utilities miss their goals.
The new decision expanded this goal
by adding a ratchet mechanism, and since IOUs
have different starting disconnection rates
the PUC set goals for 2020 through 2024,
in which higher disconnection utilities
would make sharper cuts to their disconnection rates,
such that at the end of 2020 for each IOU
would have roughly similar and lower disconnection rates.
Due to the COVID protections,
the 2020 goal will be met, and even the 2021 goal would
likely be met even, the disconnections are slightly elevated
month over month, since the goal is intended to apply
to a whole year of disconnections but utilities
will only be able to disconnect customers
for eight months at the most.
Next slide please.
So another example of a direct customer protection
is extreme temperature protections.
These were initially implemented
in that previous decision as well, but were made permanent
in the newest decision, electric higher use are not allowed
to disconnect customers when temperatures
over the next 72 hours are forecast
to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit
or go below 32 degrees Fahrenheit,
and gas utilities are similarly restricted
when temperatures are forecast
to be below 32 degrees Fahrenheit again,
over the 72 hour period, this should prevent customers
from being disconnected for nonpayment.
When weather conditions would make
this especially dangerous.
In addition, the decision implemented new benefit
of service procedures when a customer has benefited
from past service, for which the utility was not paid,
utility may require the customer
to repay the past due amount, but now only according
to an actual finding and proceed due process findings.
So the decision required utilities to implement a clear set
of procedures requiring specific evidence-based findings
by the utility and affording top customers
the opportunity to appeal.
This includes identifying and a specific trigger
of information for a benefit of service investigation
like common banking information between customers
and then customers have 30 days to respond to the utility
with any evidence of their own, to substantiate that
the disputed finding with proof of residing somewhere else
during the time charges were accrued.
The utility must respond in writing and verbally
to the evidence the customer provided within 30 days
and provide the contact information
for the customer affairs branch at the PUC.
And the utilities are also not allowed to require a customer
who was younger than 18 at the time of the charges
to pay those charges back.
So Cathy finally, a recent changes to the LIHEAP program
which is kind of straddling
both providing customers payments for current bills
and allowing them to pay back previous arrearages,
there are some new changes from the decision,
primarily related to development of the new portal system,
which will simplify communication
between the local service providers,
CFD and state, and the utilities themselves.
Those are expected to be online in 2021,
and utilities are also prohibited
from disconnecting a customer
while a LIHEAP pledge is pending, next slide.
(clears throat)
Another direct customer protection is implemented
by the new decision is that utilities may not exceed
a 30% disconnection rate in any zip code.
Now, this is a very high disconnection rate, most zip codes.
They report any disconnections
have monthly disconnection rates in the low single digits.
Because the cap is based on a percentage of customers
in a zip code disconnected rather than a number
of disconnections performed in the zip code,
it is more likely to affect low populations zip codes,
where an increase in disconnections would result
in a proportionally larger increase
in the disconnection rate.
In addition, utilities are required
to offer 12 month payment plans to all customers prior
to disconnection, this is a good example
of the second bucket, which gives customers the ability
to pay back the amount owed to the utility
on a more manageable schedule than paying it back
in a shorter period or as one lump sum.
The requirement will hopefully enable customers
to become current on payments without being disconnected.
And this is more of a budgeting their bill option
for customers rather than us a forgiveness program
because customers still have to pay back the amount
that they owe to the utility.
But importantly, it's not limited
to only CARE or FERA customers
all customers have access to these 12 month payment plans.
And additionally utilities are now required
to enroll customers whenever they speak to them
in any applicable assistance programs, they may be eligible
such as CARE or FERA to increase participation
in those bucket two programs
Utilities are not required to affirmatively establish this
of all customers, but when they speak to a customer,
they have to make sure that that's the case.
Next slide, please.
In addition, the decision made some changes
to the medical baseline program pursuant
to SB 1338 from 2018, when customers are
with eligible conditions are not enrolled
in medical baseline, they may incur much higher costs
for necessary gas or electric service.
And IOUs may fail to provide them
with services meeting their needs,
such as advanced notification of PSPS.
So this is a bucket two approach to help customers
with higher basic demand for energy afforded.
There are multiple changes to medical baseline
including eligibility for the program
that has to be certified
by a qualified medical professional,
that definition is expanding as you can see
which should reduce the barrier to accessing the program,
each utility was also directed
to develop an online customer facing portal
for both eligible customers and medical professionals
to verify eligibility that's expected
to come online early in 2021,
and that should make the process more smooth.
And each IOU is also submitted plans to energy division
for increased outreach and engagement of eligible customers
who may not be aware of the program or how to enroll,
and those are currently under review
through the advice letter process,
but all utilities are continuing those outreach efforts
in the meantime, next slide please.
And finally as Commissioner Guzman has said,
as noted earlier the PUC ordered IOUs
to stop collecting reconnection fees and all deposits
on a permanent basis,
this essentially makes the COVID protections
in this area, permanent, another bucket two policies
benefiting all residential customers who will not have
to pay these charges anymore.
This should remove a barrier for customers to be reconnected
to service once disconnected,
and it may free up customer's household budgets
as well to allow them to stay current on bills
rather than paying deposits and fees, et cetera.
And lastly, the arrearage management plans
which I've mentioned a couple of times here
are another new bucket to program coming
for all utilities in the next month modeled
on the experiences of other states.
These plans will allow customers to receive forgiveness
for their past due arrearages in exchange
for on-time payments of current monthly bills.
Eligibility is limited to CARE and FERA customers
with $500 in arrears, some portion of which is 90 days old.
And that amount is only $250 for gas only CARE customers.
Up to $8,000 in total arrearage forgiveness is available,
although customers may also re-enroll after 12 months
after a 12 month waiting period for additional forgiveness.
CCA customers are also eligible to participate
but each CCA has to make that determination on its own
and notify the relevant IOU, and finally customers
who miss two payments in a row
or three payments at any time non sequentially are removed
from program, but they keep any arrearage forgiveness
that they've already received and they can re-enroll
after a 12 month waiting period.
So we're hoping that this program will enable customers
that may have arrearages that otherwise would
be very difficult or impossible to pay back
to become current on their existing monthly payments.
And as a result would get out from under the weight
of that past due arrearage.
And that is all of the slides that I have,
so I'll pause here for any questions.
-: Thank you Ben, and we're actually gonna go straight
into this state panel and then take questions
for all together, you really set the stage nicely
for the different types of policy options
for protecting customer that are out there for California.
With this panel we're going to be hearing
from other states other utility jurisdictions
about their options and policies
protecting utility customers through COVID.
First we'll hear from Jim Borough, chief of public utilities
Illinois commerce Commission, along with Leslie and Lesco
the LIHEAP program, brome manager for Illinois department
of commerce and economic opportunity.
We'll then hear from Ohio Barbara Bossart
who's chief reliability and service and analysis division
for the public utilities Commission of Ohio.
And then finally, Theresa Washington will wrap us up
for the panel, she is a manager could it hardship programs
and protections with Eversource Energy.
So I will now turn it over and to my panelists,
please remember to turn your video on
while you're presenting as you may.
And Jim Zolnierek you're up.
-: Can you hear me, Allison?
Great, good morning Commissioners, Alison, staff,
thank you for having me here today.
I am Jim Zolnierek from the Illinois Commerce Commission.
It's the PUC and the Illinois.
I'm gonna be talking about several programs available
to Illinois customers, struggling with their bills.
My colleague from a sister agency,
Leslie Ann is gonna be talking about a couple
of those programs in particular our percentage
of income payment plan program, or PIPP.
I'll be talking about some of the programs that are
under the authority of the Commission starting with,
if you could proceed to the next slide,
and the one after that, next slide after that, thanks.
I mentioned the budget payment plans.
We have a program required by our rules
with the utilities offer budget payment plans
to customers where basically you know,
they can estimate the costs for the utility service
over 12 month period and pay 1/12 of that amount each month
so that they levelize their payments.
If you're a gas customer for example you pay
more than more in the summer month than you normally would,
and then less in the winter months,
and you get a stable payment.
And I mentioned this just because it's a prerequisite
to being on our pit plan, that Leslie is going
to speak to you about next slide, please.
One of the other existing programs to help customers
that are behind on their bills
is when we call them different payment arrangement option
or DPA's our current rules require DPA's be offered
for certain residential customers.
And these allow customers basically to build
you know, take their arrearages divide them
by the particular point of the plan and pay them
on top of the regular bill each month to get caught up.
Currently in our rules customers do enroll in these plans
have to pay 25% of the amount past due.
And if you're a low income customer,
and you qualify for a lower 20% down payment.
And the DPA's and our current rules go for anywhere
from four to 12 billing cycles, next slide, please.
(paper rustling)
I'm gonna skip this slide but I do wanna mention one thing,
in Illinois we do have a winter disconnection moratorium
which for most residents, many residential customers,
it means that they can't be shut off
between December 1st and March 31st.
It does not apply to all resident residential customers
as you can see from reading the text on the slide,
but effectively the utilities the gas
and electric utilities rarely shut off customers
in that period, so unlike what was discussed earlier
by Lourdes, I think many customers in Illinois
are very, very aware of what moratoria and very familiar
with them from these winter moratorium.
So we're in a little different circumstance there
I think, than maybe you are in California.
Next slide, please.
A little background on our response here
and on the way to COVID in early March,
when things started getting bad, in terms
of the health emergency the Illinois Commerce Commission
issued an order suspending disconnections for nonpayment
and imposition of new late fees.
And they issued that requirement to be effective
until the government ended the emergency declaration
which was an indefinite period.
They also asked for utilities to go out and create revise,
flexible credit and collection practices.
And once they issue that order, it triggered staff
consumer advocate and the utilities all get together
and start talking about, okay,
what can be done to help consumers.
And so we came up with a couple of different stipulations
to address credit and collection practices and other things,
and put those before the Commission and on June 18th, 2020,
the ICC approved these stipulations.
The first thing they did was put a finite date
on the disconnection moratorium, so it was effectively tied
to our reopening in Illinois.
Basically 30 days passed when bars and restaurants started
to reopen utilities would stop
or the disconnection moratorium in nonpayment
for non payment would end and effectively
that was 30 days past June, 26th or July 26th
is when that moratorium ended
for most residential customers, the next slide, please.
The other key credit and collection practices
that were changed with the stipulation and the Commissions
that order where that we revise
the deferred payment arrangement plans.
So that first of all, they could be much longer
for residential customers.
Now they're anywhere that utilities have to offer anywhere
from 18 months for all residential customers to 24 months
for customers that are low income
and low income includes customers
that simply self-certified hardship.
So there's some question about whether they would be able
to certify with our organizations
to assert their low-income status because that was held up
the utilities agreed that they would just simply
take a representation from customers
that they were facing hardship.
The other part of those DPA changes where the down payments
were capped at 10% for our residential customers,
and again, 0%, if you express hardship.
And there were provisions for repeated DPA's
if there was default.
The other major program I think that came out
of our Sydney stipulation was
a bill payment assistance program
where many of our utilities have uncollectable programs,
and those uncollectable programs are tied
to your customers actually defaulting
before they essentially write off those
just unfollow those councils collectibles.
And of course, during the moratorium
they weren't writing up any end collectibles.
And so what was determined was that they would take some
of the money that we normally go to collectibles
and create a bill payment assistance programs.
And these were each unique to each of the users
each of the large utility of each filed their own plan
which generally waves from 75 to $500 of customer ranges.
Next slide, please
Excuse me, face is that there's sort of a timing concern.
The way we design the plan here in Illinois was that,
you know, we'd have a discreet stop
for the moratorium I shut off,
and then folks would ease back into, you know,
payments through deferred payment arrangements
and other things, so there was a transition built in,
unfortunately, you know as we all know the emergency
didn't end as quickly as we would have hoped.
And so what happened is we had two additional extensions
for all residential customers
on the disconnection moratorium,
and then most recently the Commission reached out
and asked the utilities to suspend all the way
through March of 2021, and utilities agreed to do so,
again, for the residential customer,
I spent only the LIHEAP qualified customers or those again,
who self-certified hardship.
So that's in place, and that creates one
of the timing issues that I was discussing in terms of a lot
of our stipulation was designed
to create a transition period,
but with customers not being shut off
customers not have not really entered the period
where they necessarily need that transition to start,
so we are currently continuing discuss
these transition issues.
Next slide, please, just briefly touch on it
in our stipulation utilities are required
to reach out to customers, not only existing customers
but those had been those who have been disconnected
within the last year and notify them of opportunities
to reconnect, and they're also supposed
to post the information on these plans,
different payment arrangements and so on their website.
And they've done so.
The next plan, our next page, thank you.
As far as program stacking in Illinois,
most of our programs are designed to be stacked
with the exception of LIHEAP and why he says so lastly,
I will talk about.
PIPP customers must also participate in budget billing
that's why I mentioned that earlier.
But our deferred payment arrangement
and our bill payment assistance programs
for both designed to be on top of the other systems,
so it was envisioned that a customer who qualified
for life would not only get LIHEAP, but could also
if they qualify get bill payment assistance as well,
so those were designed to be staffed.
Next slide, please.
I included a little bit of information here,
just so you can see our trends and disconnect
or deferred payment arrangement.
As you'll see, I don't think the data
is all that informative because what we found out is,
by and large, none of the utilities disconnected
any residential customers, only our two largest electric
customers actually started disconnecting
and September mid-September, none of the others
had disconnected through September.
And there were a few disconnection notices
that went out earlier.
But again, there was really no threat of shut off
for many of these customers, and you'll see that reflected
in many of the early numbers.
So we didn't see market increase
and deferred payment arrangements until if you look
at the two Amarin and comment, we did see a marked up turn
when they actually started disconnecting customers.
And the next page and we had
the bill payment assistance program, but even though
there have been quite a few dispersments those dispersants
have been very recent,
so we're not even seeing them reflected in the data.
Our utilities are required to file data on disconnections,
late payment charges DPA's entered and disbursements
those types of things monthly, and, you know,
for the first several months,
I think first five months of the plan, you know,
none of the data was really all that useful
because not much was happening.
We're just starting to see an uptake
and we will only get our September numbers in three days.
So we're looking forward to those,
'cause we're now starting to see a period
where the numbers are actually starting to show something,
and I'll stop there
and let Leslie Ann talk about our PIPP program.
-: Hi, thanks Jim.
So I'm from the department of commerce
and economic opportunities, I believe that in California
Kathy Andry, we are, you know, we're sort of counterparts
in different states, next slide please.
As Jim mentioned, there is no stacking of PIPP
and LIHEAP Illinois,
it is available to residential customers
and they have an option to choose between PIPP and LIHEAP,
and it's always based on funding availability
at the County and utility level.
We have our five regulated utilities,
they are the ones who aren't participate in the PIPP,
we communicate with them electronically.
Whereas the other vendors throughout the state
we can go non communicating and probably non-regulated also.
And so we just used the top five,
so LIHEAP's lot more available, next slide, please.
Enrollment trends,
if you'll see where it says June 30th, 2020
that was at the end of our last program year.
We had 87% of our customers received
regular LIHEAP benefits, and then we had 13% of sorry.
13% of our population was enrolled
in the year round PIPP program.
Right now, looking down at the November 9th state
we're projected if we kept on this same enrollment trend
we would have 81% LIHEAP and 19% PIPP.
But LIHEAP just had so much more money that we anticipate
by the end of June, we'll have about 95% LIHEAP
and 5% PIPP.
We are already in meeting for stakeholders
to discuss more money in the PIPP fund.
And so we hope that by the end of 2021,
there's a little typo there, it should be 6/30/2021
that we would have even more than 13% enrollment.
So we'll see how that goes, next slide please.
So the funding for the PIPP in Illinois,
is it's a rate pay it's based on ratepayer charges
that the utilities collect,
and then they deposit them into a fund
if you wanted to look at Public Act 96-003
you could probably Google that and get more information.
Next slide please.
So the customer eligibility is at 150%
of the federal poverty level and below.
There are the top five utilities
that are in the PIPP program.
And as Jim said, the customer must be enrolled
in budget billing that's a prerequisite, next slide please.
So the state benefits for each customer,
it could be a monthly benefit up to $150,
if they're a gas and electric customer,
they would get up to a hundred dollars a month
for the gas and up to 50 for the electric.
And I don't have it on this slide, but it should say
that the customer's requirement is to pay 6%
of their monthly household gross income.
So there's a calculation that's done.
And I could you know, explain that more,
but it's kind of complicated.
Next slide please, there isn't arrearage reduction program,
we call it ARP, it's part of the program
and it's administered by the utilities,
what happens when a customer first signed up
their balance is set aside
and that's called a pre-program arrearage.
The ARP benefit is up to
a thousand dollars a year per utility.
But it's the customers are required to make on-time
in full payments of their customer payment requirement,
and if they do that, then for each month
they're on time and paid in full,
they get 1/12th of their arrearage
is disregarded it's set aside in their state
so that the benefits for the customer also,
next slide, please.
Expenditures and assistance levels,
the total amount so far this year we've spent on PIPP
is 28.7 million for 28,480 households.
The average PIPP benefit amount last program year was 1,007
and we're pretty close to that right now.
PIPP also helps lower household energy burden
for families with lowest income.
Go to the next slide, please.
That's, you know with our federal LIHEAP
we're looking more at energy burden, and so we're trying
to compare our state funded PIPP in the same regard.
And this is helping us actually.
So you can look at this later and if you have questions,
I'll try to answer them
but I'm not the energy burden expert, next please.
So changes that we made in Illinois to the PIPP program
because of the pandemic, there are features that are sort
of like collection activities.
You know, our local administering agencies
they do case management for the customers
and there's a recertification,
there's a missed payment clock
that gives customers opportunities to miss payments
and make them up, and so we suspended those activities
because most of the agencies were not seeing customers
in person and everybody was confused,
so that was one thing we did.
Also, we started our new PIPP season earlier,
it started July 27th instead of October 1st,
we are also extending the amount, the length of time
that customers can apply for PIPP to March 31st,
instead of December 31st,
and normally we have a priority period enrollment
but this year, since we started here in July,
we just wanted everyone to be able
to apply especially households
that maybe are newly unemployed or underemployed.
And so far that seems to be going pretty well.
The next slide, please.
So thank you, and there's our contact information.
-: Wonderful, thank you.
I'm gonna bounce right along
'cause we're running behind to our next next speaker
is Barbara Bossart with the Public Utilities Commission.
Barbara: Hello, thank you for having me.
As she said, I'm Barbara Bossart
and I'm with the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio,
and I'm the chief of the reliability
and service analysis division.
And we oversee the enforcement
of the deposit disconnection rules
and the low income program.
Next slide please, so I divided my presentation
into three specific questions.
First one is what is Ohio done to protect utility customers?
So first the Commission took action,
so it's March 12th, 2020 order.
And it asked the utility companies to consider ways
to keep service on regardless
of the customer's payment status,
and the utility companies did respond,
and they stopped disconnections while they reviewed
their policies to help reduce the economic impact
on customers, many companies also waived reconnection fees
to restore service to those that
had already previously been disconnected,
they also some wave late payment fees
and credit card payment fees.
The Commission then later required the large gas
and electric utilities to file transition plans prior
to resuming disconnections for nonpayment based plans,
they filed at least 45 days prior
to resumption of disconnection, next slide please.
So Ohio administrative code rules, we do have requirements
I guess when electric companies
do offer extended payment plans to customers
and threat of disconnections, so first they need to offer,
a mutually agreeable payment plan,
but if one cannot be accepted,
then they are required year around to offer a 1/6th plan
or 1/9th plan or the percentage of income payment plan
which I'll discuss over the next slide.
They all are required to offer the budget plans.
So customers who are nodding arrears can join a budget plan
which is a 12 month program.
The Commission every year before it's winter heating season
which starts in November orders
a whatever reconnection order which requires
that utilities accept a payment of 175 to prevent
or maintain service, and then the customers to be enrolled
into one of the extended payment plans.
I know you may not have a winner order,
but I think this could be utilized at any time of the year,
depending on the company.
Also, I do wanna mention that utility companies
do offer assistance to shareholder
and customer contribution funds.
During the pandemic, many of the companies had increased
the eligibility requirements and the dollar amount
to assist more customers, next slide, please.
And so I just wanted to give distinction
between our 1/6th plan and our 1/9th plan,
a 1/6th plan requires six equal payments
on the past due balance, in addition to the full payment
of the current bill.
But the one night plan is a little different,
it requires nine equal monthly payments
on the past due balance in addition
to a budget payment plan,
this is hopefully that the customers will get used
to the levelized bill and continue on to a budget plan.
Also the utilities with their transition plans,
we're encouraged off their flexible payment arrangement,
and also many of them offered a 1/12 payment plan
in addition to the required payment plan.
They also offered to work
with commercial customers on payment plan.
Next slide please.
So our PIPP Plus program here are the qualifications.
I'm not going to read them all to you,
but it is for customers at,
or below 150% of the poverty level
for at least the last three months.
And there are other eligibility such as applying
for weatherization program, next slide, please.
Trying to get done in 10 minutes.
So the benefits are, if you heat with gas,
you would pay 6% of your monthly household income for gas,
and 6% of the monthly household income for electric
or 10% whichever is less.
For households that heat with electricity,
you would just pay 10% of your household income or $10
whichever is less.
In order to incentivize customers
to pay on time and in full 'cause we want the customers
to get used to paying bills monthly,
and it helps the cash flow to utilities.
We have an incentives, so if you pay on time and in full,
the remaining balance of your current utility bill
would be credited, and also if you came in with an arrearage
1/24th credit for the accumulated arrearage
would be credited as well, next slide please.
And we really stressed customer outreach
during this transition period.
So the PUCO course, we provide education through our website
our social media, call center, and speaking engagements.
I've put a link to our website where
we have the utility restart plans.
So each company filed their own a transition plan
to say what they were going to do as a part
of the transition prior to disconnections.
So that might be a useful site for you.
And through the Commission orders approving utilities'
transition plans the Commission did encourage
each utility company to offer those flexible payment plans
and to provide outreach to customers.
And many of them do, they have a web page dedicated
to COVID-19 issues, they also issued press release
and they use their social media as well, next slide please.
So another question that I was asked
was what are the possible impacts of lifting
the consumer protections
and what mitigation measures are in place?
So the companies do the transition plans
started a resumption of disconnections,
and natural gas companies started in mainly in August
and electrics resumed in September for their approved plans.
So we did expect that there would be an increase of calls
to our call center and to the utilities call center,
so if a company requested a waiver
of our call response time requirements in our roles
and notification to the Commission,
if they could not meet those standards,
the Commission did waive those requirements,
and then we just prepared our call center staff
and all of our staff with the knowledge they needed
to help customer find assistance out there,
and know what plans are available to them.
Also, we assumed that there was going to be customers
who have never needed assistance before that were going
to need assistance and not know where to find it.
So again, outreach efforts with different agencies
and with our utilities was very key to that,
next slide, please.
Also, we thought there would be...
I will say with the call center I wanted to say that I,
we did just check our numbers, we did not get the increase
in call volume that we thought we would get
in August and September, it may be because companies
were exposed to move back into its disconnections
or it could be our outreach that did a wonderful job.
We're still revealing all of our data.
So we also expected an increase in disconnections.
Again, this is pretty early since the company
has just started disconnections,
just as a quick glance, it looks like our numbers
are lower than they were for last year,
but we will continue to monitor those activities,
and any directives that we get from the Governor's office
I'm sure the Commission will take action if needed.
Also we do have medical certificates that customers can use
if there is an illness or a medical issue in the household,
it delays disconnection for 30 days, and it could be used up
to three times in a 12 month period.
Also, we did fear that there'd be some increased activity
at the community action agencies,
as they process our applications for PIPP and LIHEAP funds.
So the Commission did suspend for a period of time,
the re-verification requirements to be on PIPP program
where you have to rebury annually your income.
And also the requirement at the anniversary date,
where you have to be current
on your 12 month installment plan.
And so that was waived for a time period as well,
and next slide please.
So what are the economic impacts
regarding these consumer protection programs?
So immediately we don't believe that the rate payers
will see an impact due to the regulatory leg,
but we do expect that there could possibly be in impacts
on the uncollectable riders decoupling riders,
or a increase in requests for deferral recovery
due to COVID expenses, the immediate part on the utilities
would be pashed flow decrease a loss of sales
and some COVID related expense.
Next slide, please
So to help manage these impact.
Again, outreach was a key 'cause we do know there
is available funds through the CARES Act that governments,
cities, and counties have received, we wanna make sure
that those funds are distributed to customers that need them
and customers know where to find them.
Again, the Commission wants to make sure
that the utilities are also tracking cost savings
along with expenses.
If they are going to seek recovery for any deferrals.
And again, increase with the flexible payment arrangements
to help customers maintain service, to get to this pandemic
to help decrease any impact on the uncollectable rider,
so that's the end of my presentation.
Hopefully I've answered the questions for you later.
Thank you.
-: Wonderful, thank you Barbara.
And yeah, we'll take questions for all the panelists
and to refill your presentation.
-: Thank you, Alison, and thank you to the staff
at the California Public Utilities Commission
for inviting me to speak today.
My name is Theresa Washington,
I'm the manager of Credit Hardship Programs
and Protections here at Eversource Energy.
And I'm gonna be sharing with everybody
about our arrears management programs.
We do have programs that are available
that help customers reduce those past due balances,
it's a real win-win for everyone,
and because especially important right now
is that our customers are facing these challenges,
they've never seen before due to the pandemic, next slide.
And I know what the interest of time,
I'll certainly just share quickly.
Of course with Eversource Energy,
we are covering three states between Connecticut,
Massachusetts and New Hampshire for gas, electric
and water utilities with over 4 million customers.
Next slide, thank you.
I'll be discussing the importance
of our utilities offering programs
that help low-income customers.
What tools do we have, as a utility in our toolbox,
provide a deeper look into our arrears management programs
and then finally share with you about Eversource's response
to the pandemic, and how we are,
or plan on returning to business as usual, next slide.
So what should the utilities offer these programs
that help low-income customers?
We know what the trifecta of benefits that start
with operational benefits, the last thing we wanna do
is disconnect service to customers
by offering these programs that help low-income customers
maintain service and pay down those past due balances,
we can avoid field visits by our technician.
There's societal benefits, right?
We keeping the balances low,
helps customers by reducing any costs
that are borne by all rate payers.
And then there's customer benefits,
but I'll go into the customer benefits
in just a few slides, next, please.
So what are the tools in our toolbox, right?
Two of our three states currently offer
in arrears management program, which are programs offered
to the low-income customers that helps reduce
or even eliminate past due balances.
We have discount utility rates.
So customers who are receiving public assistance
they're eligible for a discounted utility rate.
And we have those available in Massachusetts
and in New Hampshire.
Payment arrangements,
we've always offered payment arrangements
to our customers in which customers can spread payments
over maybe a six month period of time,
due to COVID those have expanded to 12 months
for our Massachusetts New Hampshire area,
and in Connecticut, up to 24 months.
We have deposit rules under normal course of business,
of course, deposits are built at the time of connect
or collected upon reconnect.
Now that deposits are held usually
for a specified period of time,
we have energy efficiency programs that customers
who are eligible can receive home energy assessments
at no cost to them, we send an energy specialist
they can assess the homes needs,
installed energy savings products.
The goal is really to reduce that energy bills
through these programs.
We also offer budget building which customers
can pay their average bill over a 12 month period.
It really levelized his payments for customers
and gives customers peace of mind
with fixed monthly payments.
But covered some of the tools that we have in the toolbox
and now we'll go into our arrears management program,
next slide.
So these are essentially the financial assistance programs,
they're really designed to help reduce
even eliminate those past due balances
with forgiveness credits,
given to customers with consistent payments,
residential customers that are receiving benefits
such as with WIC, food stamps, their income may fall
at or below the 60% of the state medium income
which is something that Connecticut and Massachusetts use
at the state medium income level.
They're eligible for our programs,
and by participating customers are avoiding disconnection
of service and they gain a fresh start
as they reduce those past due balances, next slide.
So you've actually heard me already speak to some
of the benefits of those programs as it promotes
and enables consistent payment, what customers are enrolled
their services protected and the customer
is getting a fresh start, by reducing their past due balance
through the forgiveness credits and monthly payments.
Our arrears management program here at Eversource,
it's called new start, we have just over 19,000 customers
in Connecticut and Massachusetts that are enrolled right now
in the program, and we're in the process of expanding
that to our New Hampshire base.
Excellent, last topic I'll cover
is really our company's response to the pandemic.
Back in March when we started learning more and more
about the pandemic, we took action
to suspend the termination notices
and shut off the cross all three states.
We simplified our enrollment into our new start program,
so if customers fell off the program
because of missed payments, they could easily re-enroll
no upfront payment requirements.
There were years management programs really have always been
for residential customers, but we did introduce
a small business arrears management program
or forgiveness program where a business customers
if they participate in the payment arrangements
that they have in upon their first payment,
into our small business program,
their April utility bill would be credited.
So we really think that's a great tool
to expand the forgiveness programs
to not only residential customers, but giving opportunity
for our business customers to participate.
And lastly, we applied security deposits up
to $20 million in security deposits that we applied back
to our business and residential customers
that had passed you arrears balances.
So we help to reduce it, so there were security deposits
that we already had on hand and customers in need.
We were able to apply those to those arrears balances.
Next slide.
So I've touched upon the work that Eversource has done
to reduce the balances through our programs,
extended payment plans,
and the security deposit application back
to the past due balances.
But there is a time that's gonna come.
You know, where the company is resuming a normal course
of business to the best of our ability
and with the most CARE for how this impacts our customers.
So New Hampshire was the first of our service territories
to resume disconnect notices and shut off actions.
But we relied on our strong relationships
with the key stakeholders,
such as the office of consumer council,
the public utility Commission, their social agencies
and community based organizations to really work together
to develop a plan of how to resume collections
and being in shutoff, if needed.
We were able to have these discussions
because we built awareness around the actions
that were taken and the programs offered.
Customers received monthly communications
through various messages, we did texts, email letters,
live outbound calling press releases.
We put information up front on our IVR system
to directly tell all customers about the payment plans
that we have, so communicating, communicating,
and communicating about programs
and services available, was really key.
We expanded our outreach by holding webinars
for our business customers and our residential customers,
we even did webinars for our agencies.
So we wanted to share what the utilities were doing
what programs we had available.
And Eversource is navigating really an uncharted waters,
like many of the other utilities,
are everything that I'm hearing today.
We kind of are in the same boat.
I believe that using those tools in our tool box
and providing customers with programs that can ease
that financial burden, customers may feel right now
it's gonna help us get through, Alison.
-: All right, thank you so much Theresa.
And I wanna you thank again all of our panelists then,
and then Jim Zolnierek, that's the end.
Barbara Bossart and Theresa Washington.
We're gonna turn it over to the Commissioners
to ask questions before as I do that,
just wanna also think Chayla Funk
who did all the upfront research in order to understand
what does variety and diversity of the tools in the toolbox
or policies to protect the customers
are that these different jurisdictions brings.
So thanks again Chayla for your efforts,
getting us to this point.
So Commissioners, please feel free to just unmute yourself.
-: This is Commissioner Rechtschaffen,
and Barbara I have a question for you.
You said that since you've resumed disconnections
since you resumed disconnection has been lower
than last year.
-: Yeah, we're still like reviewing our data.
It comes in a little behind,
so since they just gas just started in August and September
started or electric started September,
it does look like it's still lower than it was
in previous years, but you know,
we're not sure if that's just the ramping up
from the utility companies and or is it, you know
because they are offering flexible payment plans, not just
you know, customers finding the assistance that they need.
-: Well, that was my question.
What do you attribute that
to when do you expect it to last...
-: We're still analyzing, yep, still looking.
-: Thank you.
-: And Barbara I also had a question for you,
and I wonder if maybe I just misunderstood,
but on the PIPP program, and by the way,
every time we've been looking into PIPP programs
everyone always references Ohio.
So sounds like you have a good reputation there
but did I understand correctly that it's a $10 a month
pretty much set or lower based on a potential?
-: It's 6% of your income, monthly income or 10% of $10
whichever is less, so if you have zero monthly income,
you would have to at least pay $10,
but otherwise it's 6% of your household monthly income.
I should note that we did just have a rulemaking proceeding
and the Commission did agree to a 5%, but it's still going
through the rule making process, so I just wanna note that.
-: Oh okay, 'cause it says whichever is less.
So does that mean the most it could be $10
or is it whichever is...
-: Oh, I'm so sorry, it should be.
Whichever is more I'll hop up.
-: Yeah, I see, I see, okay, that makes sense.
Okay, and how many customers do you have participating?
-: I just looked at those numbers one moment here.
I could give you 2019 numbers for the total
for all of our investor owned electric electric customers.
It's about 220,000 and in 2019 it was less,
it was just 9,466.
-: Thank you.
-: I'm so sorry, that's not correct.
That was just one company, I was like, that's not right.
Sorry about that, it's about roughly 120.
-: On the gas side?
Okay, and in general, is there a certain
are these customers that are participating in the PIPP?
Do they see a certain demographic in terms of anything
are they typically older or is it mostly
just the income driven?
-: I will say I'm not the PIPP the expert, but it is.
So I don't know if we know the demographics
like I said, we do know it's a hundred
you know, 150% of the poverty level.
And I do believe we do have like such a sixth
of the population, the percentage which each bucket,
the customer falls in, if they're closer to 150%,
or if there are 75% of the poverty level.
But I'm not sure that we have an age,
a demographic age range
but I will ask our PIPP expert on that
and provide that information to you.
-: Thank you, and I'm trying to see if anyone else
has questions that I do have another question for Theresa.
And one of the things Theresa you mentioned
and I think a few of your colleagues here
about just some of the basic things, having the IOUs
like yourself, you mentioned that you are putting things
on your website having, by the way,
I think the small business AMP kind
of it's so two questions for you.
One is, can you talk a little bit
about how you got approval for some of your COVID responses?
Was there a settlement process?
I know in a previous conversation in talking to Jim,
he discussed this kind of master settlement
that came together and Illinois, was there some process
that allowed you to move quickly as an example
to establish a small business arrearage forgiveness.
And maybe I'll just stop with that question.
-: Thank you so much Commissioner, that is a great question.
In Massachusetts that's where we were able
to launch a small business arrear to forgiveness program.
It did go through an approval process.
So it went through the DQC out in Massachusetts
and we proposed it earlier in the season
when the shut-off protections they began,
and it did take a little while through discussions
and we had to wait for approval to launch that,
we have proposed it here in Connecticut,
however we haven't received approval to move forward yet.
So right now that is a program that's available
to our Massachusetts business customers.
But absolutely we did have to go
through the approval process with the Commission.
-: Thank you, and many of you it sounds like you
as a company have put these concepts together
and requested them, have any of them come
about any sort of different way.
-: So as far as the applying security deposit back
to customers, that is something
that we did proactively propose and received approval to do
through the authority.
When it came to the 24 month payment plan,
and please know that I'm not sure if I mentioned it before
there is no down payment requirements
for our 24 month extended payment plan.
It's available to all customers, residential and commercial
that did come forth at the request of the Commission.
So it wasn't where we you know, created that idea
and delivered it, but yeah, absolutely
that was through the Commission offering that extension
of a payment plan, but we did proactively indicate
that with our new start or our arrears management program,
customers that fell off,
we were waiving those reenrollment, you know
any costs because typically we would ask customers
that fell off the program to make up whatever miss payments
they had under the circumstances we are allowing
certainly if they customers qualify
they need to get back on the programs
there's no cost for them to do so.
-: And one short followup is the 24 month payment plan
with no down payment, is that a limited time?
Yeah, how long has that?
-: So that was originally being offered here in Connecticut
through November 1st which was inline
with the end of the shutoff moratoria
which was October 31st here in Connecticut.
And we have a winter moratorium period
that began November 1st, we did receive about two weeks ago
or so approval from the Commission or a request
to extend that through February 9th of 2021
or until the Governor lifts, maybe the state of emergency.
So it has been extended through that period of time.
-: Thank you.
-: You're welcome.
-: Other questions from other Commissioners.
-: This is Genevieve no questions,
just really my appreciation
and thanks for the workshop today.
I learned a lot and I think that communication is really key
and keeping your customers informed of what is available
to them and then what they need to plan for
as we head to 2021, and I know there's work ahead to us
on evaluating options in future proceedings,
the information is very helpful, so thank you to all.
-: All right, great, we'll wait to see
if other Commissioners have any other questions
or comments I'm gonna do a quick round
of the panelists with a question I have.
You know, you've been hearing about what our picture here
in California today, as far as the options policies already
in place, and then the customers and our data
is showing regarding customer impact from COVID.
And I wanted to ask if you've had representatives
or, you know, personally representing your state or not,
but what you would say the policy
that California should potentially or actions
that we should potentially consider given what you know,
as far as your offerings in your state, and what you've seen
that we at California currently are currently offering.
-: So Alison out start with these questions.
And, you know, hearing today, just the messages
from what California is doing, even the other utilities
you know, I think offering that we all have some sort
of form of an a management program.
I do think it did help where customers were able
to use that security deposit, that we were holding
and under normal circumstances you know,
we would have applied those security deposits back
after some consistent payment behavior,
just by under the normal regulations that we have by state
but helping those customers to get that relief
that you know, we were getting some calls from customers
to say, "I have a security deposit that you're holding,
can you apply that to my past due balance?"
and being able to do that and help those customers who,
you know they were feeling anxious,
how am I gonna pay this bill I don't have,
the money up front.
So the ability to use those dollars
towards the past due balances I think was beneficial.
And maybe you can be you know, adopted, you know,
by other utilities,
but I think that would be one, thank you.
-: This is Jim from Illinois,
we've run into a few glitches in terms of implementation
that you might want to be aware of.
We have a crisis assistance fund
which provides little more than regular LIHEAP customers,
particularly customers that
are gonna be imminently disconnected,
they have a disconnection notice that, you know,
within seven days or they have been disconnected
that provides them more funding.
What we found out is that in some cases customers
were calling the utilities and utilities
were putting them all on for payment arrangement,
but come to find out,
you enter a deferred payment arrangement,
you considered not subject to eminent disconnection,
so they were losing that crisis funding,
so we're struggling with those kinds of things.
And related to that is when we were discussing
with stakeholders you know,
how utilities correspond with customers,
there was a lot of desire for having sort
of scripted language, you know, make sure
that you say here, the deferred payment arrangements,
and so you say it this way and that kind of thing,
and what we're finding out a little bit anyway
is that something like this was not foreseen.
So the fact that we don't have an entirely script
it's probably good,
because now the consumer customer service agents
can kind of discuss this option and say,
well, you might wanna get your crisis assistance first
and then enroll in a DPA.
You know, that wasn't in the script
that was originally proposed,
so just be aware of those implementation issues
and be a little bit flexible I think,
because that can be important.
-: I know we did find out many of our utilities continue
to send the disconnection notices,
even though they weren't disconnected,
but they put notes on there just due to the programming,
but also because many customers needed
to provide a disconnection notice to get assistance.
It was sometimes it was a requirement,
so it was something that they would need.
So I'm not sure if that's the same in California art or not
but again, I think trying to help those customers find out
where those funds are available to help them reduce
their balance down and keep their service on as well as,
you know, getting cash flow.
So it doesn't ultimately impact all rate payers
to help limit that impact.
-: Wonderful, thank you.
And before I'm just checking the Q&A box here
but any other questions from even panelists
to each other or the Commissioner,
we have a few minutes left.
-: Sure, I guess a question for Jim and Barbara
and Leslie Ann too if you know but, are your 24 sounds
like maybe Illinois 24 payment plan option
with a continuous one?
It's not a COVID response limited one, is that correct?
-: No, that actually is a response to COVID,
our previous we had requirement for payment plans
that would be anywhere from four to 12 months
and then the COVID package extended that to 18 and 24,
if you were, you know, a hardship customer.
So that's a COVID specific increase in an existing plan.
-: And Barbara, is that the same for you guys?
-: No, we did not make a requirement
to increase what we already had in our rules,
which were up to the 1/9th plan.
But most of the companies did offer a 1/12th plan
or they would work with customers
and depending on the customer's need and their arrearage,
they would offer a 1/24th
but it was not mandated by the Commission.
Cliff: I was going to ask the question
about the small business program that Theresa was talking
about that had started on that kind of program.
-: This is Jim from Illinois part
of our negotiated agreement was plan for small businesses,
commercial and industrial customers.
It was not as generous as for residential customers,
For example, I think you could get
a deferred payment arrangement for up to three months
with 33% down or up to six months with 50% down.
And that was extended through August 26, 2020
to business customers, and I should note in response
to Commissioner says previous question
that that DPA's deferred payment arrangements
for up to 18-24 months are going to be offered only
through December 26 right now, although there's discussion
of you know, if the continuing crisis extending all
of this things, those are ongoing discussions.
-: Again, the Commission did not mandate it.
It would have to be if the company offered it
into their transition plans, and also top of my head,
I think there was only one company,
that I know that they were going to work with them,
but I'm not aware of any arrearage crediting
for small commercial I would have to review that
all their transition plans again, I'm sorry.
-: Thank you.
-: Okay, well, I think we can move to wrapping up.
I'll pass the Commissioners if you have any statements
before I close out the meeting.
-: Oh sure, thank you very much.
I just again, very appreciative,
particularly from the other states.
So taking the time to share your creativity
and your partnership with your customers and your utilities.
And of course from all the local groups that we heard
from in California, including our sister agency, SSD
I found a lot of your comments extremely helpful, even just
as a Commissioner Cheryl mentioned the importance
of communication and clarity and transparency.
I think we all heard the call for an ad hoc committee,
we'll take that back to think through as well
as many other recommendations here, so thank you.
And again, I wanna thank the staff and energy division
and Pao for helping put this together.
-: And this is Commissioner Randolph,
I just wanna thank everyone for their participation
and also just highlight the importance
of community based organizations
in helping customers understand what's going on
and what their options are, so I really wanna encourage
that continued coordination and the extent
an ad hoc committee can help improve
I think that would be really beneficial.
-: This is Commissioner Rechtschaffen,
and I wanna echo what my colleagues said.
I think this was gonna be a very very important time
in the next few months and when some of the protections
we put in place go away.
So we really need to get to continue to input
of the advocacy groups, I wanna thank the folks
from our colleagues from Ohio
and not just for participating today,
but for helping to pioneer some of these programs
that we're now relying on,
it's nice to not just not to be the leader in everything,
and to be able to borrow from some
of the great consumer protection work that others have done.
-: Wonderful, thank you.
And just to final wrap up, I wanna remind our audience.
We have been monitoring the Q&A often responding
to questions there.
Most of the questions that we didn't have a chance
to respond to the notice that your question I you can,
the audience can continue to submit any comments
to the email address shown
on the slide covidresponse@cpc.ca.gov by December 4.
It may be that some of your comments or questions,
or actually you know, parts of what
we're considering here today,
so we may not have a direct answer, but rather ingest that.
It's a question as far as what options action
could we consider as a Commission to take
to address the impacts that customers
are facing an energy customers in particular from COVID.
So thank you everybody, and I hope you enjoy getting
off nine minutes earlier.
You're expected to a lunch break.
-: Thank you.
Woman: Thank you so much for having us.