Thousands seek help with soaring electric bills | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

In fiscal 2008, which ended in June, 4,324 county residents applied for help, a 38-percent jump from 2007. That was the biggest increase of any county in the state.

In addition, in the first five months of this year, Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. has disconnected about 12,000 of its customers statewide for failure to pay their bills, with 5,000 of them occurring in May alone. By comparison, there were 900 disconnections in May 2007.

This all comes in a summer when BGE customers are taking an even bigger hit than previously anticipated. Though early predictions in January estimated BGE bills would increase by 5.5 percent, this season Marylanders are experiencing a 7.6-percent hike. That comes on the heels of the 72-percent increase ushered in during the past few years by deregulation of the state's electric utilities.

BGE spokesman Linda Foy said the company's average delinquency rate has only increased by 2 percent this month over June 2007 and has remained between 9 and 15 percent of its current customers, which the company considers a "normal" range.

"I cannot speak for (other organizations) or what they are seeing. I can only tell you what our numbers show," Ms. Foy wrote in an e-mail to Capital Gazette Newspapers/

BGE expects about 30,000 of its customers statewide this year will have their power disconnected for failure to pay. That's 7,000 more disconnections than last year.

But Ms. Foy said the numbers don't necessarily indicate a rising trend.

"I would caution against drawing any conclusions about why the number is up when 2007 and 2008 are compared since it was actually higher in 2006 than it was in 2007," she said.

According to BGE's records, the number of its customers who were "eligible" for turn-off from the beginning of January through June has totaled 1 million, with 15,000 actually losing their power.

Ms. Foy said BGE tries to keep disconnection as a last resort. "We continue to work with customers on payment arrangements and encourage anyone having trouble paying their bill to contact us in advance of receiving a turn-off notice or having service terminated," she said.

Since electricity deregulation and BGE's implementation of a 72-percent rate increase, ratepayers have struggled to acclimate to the rising expense, some believing it the insult to the economic slowdown's injury.

Gov. Martin O'Malley negotiated and finalized a settlement agreement with BGE's umbrella company, Constellation Energy, during the last General Assembly session, but the one-time, $170 rebate for 1.1 million BGE customers has provided households little relief in light of the continuing rate increases.

The state agencies

"I'm not surprised to hear that nonprofits and churches are having to turn away people because of not enough funding to go around," said Paula Carmody of the Office of the People's Counsel.

State-funded programs like the Electric Universal Service Program, for which Anne Arundel County residents have shown the greatest increase in applicants in the past year, already are being stretched, Ms. Carmody said.

With the recent end of fiscal 2008, statewide applications to the Office of Home Energy Programs increased by more than 15 percent, the greatest year of growth in inquiries since the program began.

Despite the prediction of 8 percent more applicants for fiscal 2009 and the department's requests to the Public Service Commission to expand its funding, its budget will remain at $36 million for bill payment assistance, the same amount allotted to the program as last year. Though Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation officials say Maryland's economy is strong and stable compared with the majority of other states, the rise of power and fossil fuel prices is taking its biggest toll on the households working on tight budgets, with slim wiggle-room for disposable income.

"Now they're having to dip into what they have saved, and they're running out of money, basically," said Andy Moser, DLLR assistant secretary. "And the higher the cost goes, the more people who will fall into that realm."

In her eight years of employment with Light House, Ms. Brownlee said this is the most need she has ever observed, but she fears the worst is yet to come.

"I put myself in their position," she said. "First of all, you get humiliated standing in line out there, and then when you get turned away, it's just another slap in the face."