On Wednesday, Oct. 14, the Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) announced it was filing for another water rate increase. It will be the ninth consecutive year with a water rate increase.
The Water and Sewer Rate Board (Rate Board) votes on the requested rate increase.
The Rate Board’s chair is the former Water Commissioner, who hired all the consultants PWD used to determine the need for the water rate increase. The chair is prejudiced, already deciding that the experts PWD hires are to be trusted.
But it’s actually worse than that. The former commissioner is attempting to hire a lawyer who she calls the public advocate, without telling the public what the rate board is doing.
On the agenda for the Oct. 14 meeting, there is a line item: “Status of Contract Renewals.” It doesn’t say what contracts are being renewed.
Hall Monitor Consumer Reporter Lance Haver attended the meeting and asked what contracts were being renewed. From there, it became something more bizarre than the trial in “Alice in Wonderland.”
The former Water Commissioner said the contract being renewed was for the public advocate. Lance asked whether the Rate Board would hold a hearing to let the public speak about how happy (or unhappy) they are with the performance of the Rate Board’s hire. After all, for eight years in a row, the Rate Board’s Advocate has met with the Water Department lawyers behind closed doors and agreed to support the rate increases sought by PWD. The Rate Board’s contract with its advocate does not require the advocate to have a client group, meet with community and civic groups, or come before City Council to explain why the Rate Board’s advocate has never hired an expert to find operational savings, thereby making a rate increase unnecessary.
Mr. Robert Ballenger, the lawyer the Rate Board picked and whose firm is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the Rate Board, whenever the history of the rising rates comes up, accuses Lance of lying. But the facts are the facts: look at your bill, and you know the rates have gone up every year for the last eight years, and every increase resulted from Mr. Ballenger agreeing to what PWD wanted. After one of Lance’s articles regarding the rising water rates, Mr. Ballenger tried to get Lance fired.
It is true that, like in the last rate case, when PWD received over 90% of what it requested, the settlement was slightly less than what was originally requested. Like stores that first mark up costs before announcing a sale, PWD always asks for more than it needs. PWD claims this isn’t true, and that it only asks for what it needs. Here is how we know it is not correct: PWD has never received every dollar it originally requested and has never needed an emergency rate increase. In secret negotiations, the Rate Board’s advocate agreed to more than enough for PWD.
Only a naïve fool would believe that PWD doesn’t know to ask for more than it wants, then lower its request so it’s more palatable.
Lance asked the former Commissioner how the public could comment on the job the rate board’s advocate has done, and if the contract should be renewed, without a public meeting. The answer was that the public can read the agenda. But of course, the agenda doesn’t say what contracts are being renewed.
And even if it did, the contract isn’t available to the public because the terms aren’t yet set in stone. The former Commissioner said she did not recall the terms, but they would be known after the contract was signed.
The Commissioner, on the record, made it clear that the Rate Board would not inform the public, other than through the indecipherable agenda notice. As part of the contract renewals on the agenda, Mr. Ballenger would once again, as he has in the past, after agreeing to give PWD what it wanted, get his law firm a contract worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Despite Philadelphia City Council’s concerns about affordability, the Rate Board said it would not inform any Council Member about the contract renewals.
During the Public Comment section, the Rate Board’s advocate, paid by the Rate Board and answering to the Rate Board, not the public, spoke as if they were an independent voice. In a self-serving discourse, Mr. Ballenger said that because PWD is seeking a rate increase, there isn’t time to ask anyone what they think of the job the Rate Board’s advocate is doing in representing the public. The Rate Board hires Mr. Ballenger’s law firm, supervises Mr. Ballenger, and then allows Mr. Ballenger to speak as if he were an independent member of the public.
And the shame is that while City Council worries about affordability, the Rate Board and its advocate shut the public out of the process, refusing to allow the public to have any input into the positions the “public advocate” takes.
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