BEFORE CHANGING PAYMENT SYSTEM CUC wants gov’t to settle $12-M

The legislative proposal to transfer responsibility of paying government utilities to each department and agency is a welcome move, but the Commonwealth Utilities Corporation still insists on settling unpaid bills amounting to over $12 million.

CUC Executive Director Timothy P. Villagomez said the move by the Legislature will help in cutting power and water consumption of public offices because agencies and departments will each have to pay what they use.

“That’s a good idea,” he told in an interview, adding the government has been implementing conservation measures that have resulted to lower utilities costs in recent months.

“But the problem is payment. That’s the bottom-line that we’re looking at. We need to get paid,” explained Mr. Villagomez.

The government-owned utility corporation has been prodding the Tenorio administration to meet its mounting debt. At present, it owes CUC over $12 million — and still counting — which represents utilities costs for all departments and agencies from as far back as late 1997.

In an effort to encourage public offices to cut back their utilities costs, the House has inserted a rider in the FY 2001 budget proposal turning over responsibility of paying to each department or agency.

This will change the current utilities payment system in which, instead of having the Governor’s Office pay for all utilities costs of the government, each department or agency will have to set aside portion of their fiscal budget to meet this obligation.

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio has been asking lawmakers for such a change to step up his conservation directive which he enforced last June following a request from the CUC board.

According to Mr. Villagomez, although there has been tremendous decrease in government billings, the administration still needs to pare down t its debt at least by half.

Utility officials are hoping to meet anew with finance officials to reach an agreement on how to settle the obligations. “We have not sat down and hopefully we will get this going again,” he said.

CUC received its last payment of close to a million dollar from the Department of Finance in July, which was enough only to settle current billings.

Finance officials have offered a $250,000 per quarter payment — an amount that is not even sufficient to cover monthly utilities costs of the government that run over $1 million.

Under the governor’s proposed spending package for the next fiscal year, about $4 million were earmarked for government utilities which was the same level appropriated for the past few years.

It is not known how much the House set aside under its proposal, although many departments and agencies received additional funding for their utilities.

In submitting the budget package last April, Mr. Tenorio had urged the Legislature to transfer the burden to respective departments and agencies in light of increasing utilities costs of the government.

While the executive branch corners huge chunk of the fiscal budget, the governor said it is unfair for his office to pay for power, water and sewer needs of all departments and agencies, including the Legislature and the courts.

Lawmakers have acknowledged the need to stop this practice which has discouraged government offices to conserve energy because of lack of accountability on their part.