DC - Gas Co., County Strike Deal

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Washington Gas Light Co. will collect one year's worth of gas bills from thousands of Fairfax County customers the utility accidentally underbilled over five years under a settlement reached with the county.

And customers whom the company overbilled during the same period will be eligible for back payments, plus interest, dating to 1996. The refunds will average about $500 per household.

The agreement, which needs final approval from the State Corporation Commission after hearings in September, could resolve a three-month standoff between the company and Fairfax officials over billing errors discovered by a customer 17 months ago. The company's billing records had failed to reflect the pressure of gas entering thousands of customers' homes in Northern Virginia.

The result was that 9,500 households in the region were overcharged for gas, while 16,300 others paid too little, the company said. About 4,370 of the affected customers live in Fairfax County. Washington Gas customers in Arlington, Alexandria, Maryland and the District also were affected. Washington Gas, Northern Virginia's dominant utility, serves 380,000 households in the region.

In May, the utility announced plans to recoup the underbilled charges in monthly installments over five years, without interest. It proposed refunding the overbilled charges for up to five years, but not longer, even if the customer overpaid for a longer period.

But some members of the county Board of Supervisors balked at that plan, questioning the fairness of recovering undercharges retroactively over five years and cutting off overcharges at five years.

"Our position from the beginning has been to make a good faith effort to reach an equitable agreement with which all the customers affected are pleased," said Miguel Gonzales, a company spokesman.

Under the new plan, approved by supervisors last week, customers who were underbilled would reimburse the company for one year's worth of underpayments, in monthly installments without interest. Fairfax officials estimated that amount at $100. Overbillings would be refunded back to March 1996, plus interest, officials said.

The compromise still has left some supervisors unsatisfied.

"It's a vast improvement over the original proposal," Supervisor Sharon S. Bulova (D-Braddock) said. "But I still have a problem with Washington Gas collecting from folks who received a bill that told them what they owed and years later finding out they didn't pay enough."

A customer knowledgeable about natural gas discovered the billing errors by complaining about an incorrect bill, touching off an internal investigation by the utility.

The State Corporation Commission will hold hearings on the proposed settlement plan at 2 and 7 p.m. Sept. 9 at the Fairfax County General District Court.

Washington Post

-- Anonymous, August 02, 2002


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