Skyrocketing utility bills are providing a jolt for schools and consumers alike, and the situation isn't likely to resolve itself soon.
Like educational institutions around the state, community colleges are grappling with ever-increasing gas and electric bills - and some, like the College of the Sequoias in Visalia - are being further penalized.
Because the Visalia area is on a state list of interruptible rate programs, it is among the first to face rolling blackouts in exchange for lower power rates. While blackouts hadn't previously been a problem, the college is now coping with repeated outages, as well as a December utilities bill that went up 171 percent from its usual $31,602 to $85,755.
"The president made the decision to keep the power on during finals because it had been shut down so many times," explained David Adams, dean of administrative services for College of the Sequoias. "We were charged $4,000 an hour, over $59,000 in total, in penalties for keeping the power on for 15 hours."
The college, as well as the city of Visalia, has been lobbying the state to get off that list, but the next opportunity was not until this month. Meanwhile, community colleges throughout the state are dealing with rolling blackouts and rising energy costs.
"There are many colleges that were given a cheaper power rate for years and never had any power interruptions. Suddenly, they are being interrupted regularly - particularly at some of our colleges in the Los Angeles area. This is going to have a real impact on students," says Ray Giles, director of special services for the Community College League.
The league, the Association of College Business Officers and the chancellor's office are gathering rate hike information from colleges around the state in an effort to determine a way to deal with the crisis. While many colleges are on interruptible power programs, even districts that aren't face rising power costs.
At this point, there are no clear solutions.
"In particular, neither the Administration nor the Legislature has yet introduced a measure to reimburse public entities (including school districts, community colleges, UC or CSU) for the excess power charges," Chancellor Tom Nussbaum wrote in his weekly e-mail to community colleges in mid-January.
Faculty leaders are worried about the long-term impact. "There are no clear answers to date, in part, because there is no clear understanding of the problem," says Community College Association President Dian Hasson. "Although some claim the power shortage was engineered and/or exacerbated by poor management, even if true, that does not save the state's surplus from being spent on propping up the utility industry.
"The state's surplus, which once looked so promising, is slowly being moved from education to the utility industry," says Hasson.
Dale Martin
