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$90M budget OK’d for CUC in FY23
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors holds a meeting at CUC’s conference room in Dandan. (Leigh Gases)
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors approved yesterday CUC’s proposed $90,740,128 budget for fiscal year 2023, which is $15 million higher than was approved for this current fiscal year.
All four board members approved the budget during a meeting at CUC’s conference room at the Joeten Dandan building. Present for the board were board chair Miranda V. Manglona, Commonwealth Development Authority chair Aubry Hocog, and directors Janice Tenorio and Jovita Paulino, among other CUC management. The budget was presented before the board by CUC chief financial officer Greg Cruz.
In a later interview, CUC executive director Gary P. Camacho acknowledged that “it’s a tight year considering revenues are down” but he is “hopeful, although it’s challenging, that CUC will be able to meet the needs of the corporation” and that “CUC will be able to accomplish its mission.”
According to Camacho, the big-ticket item on the budget is fuel. “Like anything else, fuel is an issue, [the] cost of fuel is going up, and is always going to be concerning,” he said.
Additionally, CUC has outstanding accounts that are unpaid and CUC has to pay for the fuel adjustment charges of those unpaid accounts.
The FAC is one of two components that make up the CUC electric kilowatt-hour rate, which is used to purchase fuel. The second component is the CUC base rate, which is used to fund operations, projects, and debt service.
According to Camacho, “[fuel] is based on the current international affairs which are unpredictable. With the war in…Ukraine…it is obviously causing an impact,” he added.
Additionally, when asked what else the budget entails, Camacho cited operations and payroll.
He assured that CUC “will do the best we can to meet those demands and the services we provide.”
