Former Leland City Clerk Mickey Fratesi will be examining some Itta Bena light bills to check for possible problems.
Fratesi, who was Leland’s city clerk for around 30 years, spoke Wednesday at a special meeting of the Itta Bena Board of Aldermen. He said he was doing this work for free to try to help the city understand the calculations better.
He said he had not seen any major discrepancies so far but had examined only a few bills.
“Based on those bills, which is a small amount of bills — really I should have a thousand bills to average them out — (the town) is still charging the public 11 cents per kilowatt hour,” Fratesi said after the meeting.
The calculation of the town’s light bills has been a major topic of discussion recently. One citizen, Patricia Young, collected around 300 signatures on a petition and sent it to the State Auditor’s Office to request an investigation into the rates on electric bills.
Young, who said she has been investigating this issue since last year, claims that while most residents have been paying around 12 cents per kilowatt hour, others have been charged anywhere from 14 to 20 cents. She also held a press conference early last week to discuss this. Around 40 residents attended, and some of them spoke to the crowd on the same issue.
Logan Reeves, a spokesperson for the State Auditor’s Office, confirmed last week that the complaint had been turned over to the office’s investigation department.
Reeves said that although the bills are under investigation, that “does not necessarily mean there are going to be any arrests made or criminal activity found.”
Fratesi said that based on the small amount of information he currently has, he feels it may be just a large mix-up.
“It’s more a matter of everyone not understanding than it is the rate they’re being charged at,” he said after speaking with the board.
After the meeting, Mayor J.D. Brasel and Alderwoman-at-large Mildred Miller said a number of things could cause confusion with these bills that residents have claimed are incorrect.
For example, Miller said some who say their bills are too high are not accounting for computing errors. Sometimes such an error results in a person not being charged the full amount one month, but then the amount undercounted will be added to the next month’s bill, Miller said.
She said this makes some bills seem expensive when in actuality it is just a combined price for multiple months.
Brasel added that many residents, when calculating their bills, are also not taking into consideration the town’s rate for fuel adjustment. This adjustment has been in place for several years and allows compensation to the Municipal Energy Agency of Mississippi — the town’s energy provider — for fluctuations in the cost of fuel, which are not included in the base rate.
• Contact Adam Bakst at 581-7233 or abakst@gwcommonwealth.com. Twitter: @AdamBakst_GWCW
