New fee on RG&E bills

ROCHESTER N.Y

Ouch. That's what people said Monday when News 10 NBC told them about a new fee on their gas and electric bills. It adds up to hundreds of millions of dollars for New York State.
Not one person we spoke with downtown knew about the extra fee on their utility bills. "I did not know about that. I did not," said RG&E Customer Dana Knapp. "It's pretty steep. It's a pretty steep increase. But I like that my gym membership is not being taxed."
"I didn't know until you just told me. It's ridiculous," said Karen Keegan. "We are taxed incredibly too much in New York state and I'm getting a little tired of it."
"I think what they ought to do is cut expenses instead of raise more taxes," said Richard Champion.
Your utility bill always carried a fee, 1/3 of one percent or about $8 a year, to pay for the Public Service Commission and its staff, which regulates utilities in New York.
But the governor and legislature raised that fee to two percent. The 1/3 of one percent still goes to the PSC. The rest, about $40 a year, goes to the state's general fund. It's just one of dozens of new fee and tax increases approved to balance this year's state budget.
"As you know, the state faced a tremendous decline in revenues this year because of the nationwide fiscal crisis," said Jeffrey Gordon, Governor Paterson spokesman in Albany. "This is one of the many difficult choices that needed to be made to ensure that we did not cut into critical services that taxpayers all over New York State demand."
But for Yolanda Skinner, who's seeing daycare, gasoline and other prices go up, this is piling on. "I think it's ridiculous because the economy is bad and we need jobs out here. They're raising rates everywhere. RG&E is already enough to pay as it is. Especially when you’re a single mother and you can't really find a decent job."
The Governor's office says the new part of the fee would raise $540 million a year. How long will we have to pay this? Five years through March 2114. All RG&E does is collect it. All the money is passed on to state; utilities make no profit.