ALBANY – State Senator James Skoufis (D, Cornwall) chairman of the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, has released his committee’s report on utility company pricing practices and failures.
The report takes a close look into Central Hudson Gas and Electric’s failed new billing system.
“We make recommendations such as requiring the Public Service Commission to have to affirmatively vote and approve of any changes within a utility when it comes when it comes to turning over to a new billing vendor, new billing software, so that the state regulators actually have a say when that happens in an attempt to try and create another set of eyes and watchdogs before we have thousands and thousands of ratepayers injected into a new system that in this case certainly failed miserably and caused a lot of trauma,” he said.
The report also said the state should strengthen oversight of utility hedging practices, standardize customer communications, provide limitations on retroactive billing, heighten requirements on annual audits, and include prohibitions on service shutoffs.
