FirstEnergy caught profiting off tree trimming while hiking rates for Northeast Ohio customers
If you’re a FirstEnergy customer in Northeast Ohio, prepare for your electric bill to increase while customers elsewhere see decreases – a situation that had Today in Ohio podcast hosts once again questioning the utility’s failure on grid investment.
While Ohio Edison and Toledo Edison customers will see base rates decrease by a few dollars monthly, Illuminating Company customers face a $5 monthly increase. The disparity can be blamed on FirstEnergy’s need to deal with infrastructure failure, the result of decades of neglect.
Laura Johnston explained on Monday’s episode that the rate discrepancy stems from maintenance costs: “The cost of maintaining the electricity grid in Northeast Ohio is more expensive than elsewhere… Maybe because they didn’t use their grid modernization fee to actually modernize the grid.”
This pointed reference to FirstEnergy’s history of collecting fees for grid modernization – money that apparently never made it to actual infrastructure improvements – highlights why Northeast Ohio customers continue to suffer reliability issues while paying more.
Even more outrageous was the revelation that FirstEnergy had been profiting from basic maintenance work. As Johnston explained, “You know what I was floored by in this story was that the PUCO also blocked First Energy from continuing to earn profits on their tree trimming and line clearing work…And that to me is just galling that they were paying somebody to do the work they should have been doing and then charging us extra on top of what they were paying.”
Between 2007 and 2021, FirstEnergy outsourced nearly $270 million of vegetation management work, then charged customers an additional fee on top of those costs – essentially taking a profit for maintenance work they should have been performing regularly.
“They just are thieves,” said Chris Quinn. “Any way they can nickel and dime us, they do, instead of running a responsible utility. And yet they’ll tell you today ‘we’re not the same utility that bribed the Statehouse into oblivion. We’re a better company today.’ When are we going to see a sign of that?”
The discussion also touched on how, despite FirstEnergy’s claims of reform following the House Bill 6 bribery scandal, their business practices continue to prioritize profit extraction over customer service and grid reliability. While PUCO did reduce the company’s requested profit margin from 10.8% to 9.63%, the fundamental issues remain.
Listen to the discussion here.
Listen to full “Today in Ohio” episodes where Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Editorial Board member Lisa Garvin, Impact Editor Leila Atassi and Content Director Laura Johnston.
