On Tuesday, as the City of Pittsburg reviews two potential contracts related to a plan to take over electric utility service from private provider Westar, the Kansas House of Representatives has a hearing scheduled for a bill which recently passed the State Senate and which would mandate an independent study of electric utility rates.
“There’s been a lot of pressure on Westar to lower their rates,” Deputy City Manager Jay Byers told the Morning Sun on Friday. But the bill — if passed would require a bipartisan legislative council to select an outside organization to complete an electric utility rate study by 2020 “doesn’t really affect what we’re doing right now,” he added.
Byers pointed out that there are currently 118 public electric utilities in the State of Kansas. According to Kansas Municipal Utilities, an organization representing such providers as well as municipal natural gas, water, wastewater and telecommunications utilities, this means Kansas has the 4th highest number of public power providers of any US state, with 1 in 6 Kansans served by a municipal power utility. The median size of such power providers, however, is a utility serving just 832 customers, while Pittsburg is a city of more than 20,000 people.
(Read more: Pittsburg, KS – Morning Sun)