A night in the luxury Prince de Galles Hotel in Paris. Dinner at Frasca in Boulder. A round of golf at the Inverness Hotel and Golf Course. Seats at a Colorado Avalanche game.
Priceless?
Well, they are now, as far as Xcel Energy customers are concerned — since the utility agreed to remove $280,000 in food, perks and travel from its pending $136 million Colorado electricity-rate request.
“All parties agree those costs are coming out of the rate case,” said Terry Bote, Colorado Public Utilities Commission spokesman.
The perks and travel charges were first brought to light in September by the Minnesota attorney general’s office in Xcel’s Minnesota rate case.
The inquiry by the attorney general’s office led to $3.9 million in perks being removed from the Minnesota rate request.
The charges were called “exorbitant” and “unnecessary” by John Lindell, a financial analyst for the Minnesota attorney general.
Leslie Glustrom, a citizen intervenor in the Colorado rate case, tried to introduce the Minnesota testimony at hearings this month.
“There’s a recession. People are scraping by month to month,” Glustrom said in an interview. “People can’t afford to pay for Xcel executives’ fancy hotels and dinners.”
Xcel attorneys questioned the relevance of the Minnesota findings. The PUC requested a breakdown of any perks and travel that had been added to the Colorado case.
The utility produced a list of trips, retreats, dinners, sporting events and limousine services totaling almost $364,000, with a third of it tentatively charged to Colorado customers.
Among those costs were:
• $15,211 at Frasca for board-of-director dinners, of which $3,458 had been charged to Colorado ratepayers.
• $45,000 for a one-week trip to Europe by Xcel’s chief executive and chief financial officer for investor meetings, of which $10,361 had been charged to Colorado ratepayers.
• $9,936 for Avalanche tickets, of which $5,410 had been charged to Colorado ratepayers.
When the findings were presented to the PUC, Xcel offered to take them out of the rate case.
In a settlement agreement with PUC staff and a group representing large-business customers, Xcel also cut an additional $159,000 in employee food and beverage charges.
“We have worked to reduce employee expenses over the past few years and removed costs from both Minnesota and Colorado rate cases,” said Scott Wilensky, Xcel’s vice president of regulatory and resource planning.
The goal, Wilensky said, is to “assure that the cases remained focused on the primary need for our requests, which is to recover significant new investments in our generation, transmission and distribution systems.”
Xcel was awarded a $91.4 million rate increase in Minnesota, 41 percent less than it had initially requested.
The Colorado case, in which Xcel initially sought $182 million, is awaiting a final decision from the PUC.
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
What Xcel wanted you to pay for
Among the perks and expenses that have been removed from Xcel’s Colorado rate request:
$4,238
A board-of-directors dinner at Oceanaire in Denver, including $1,200 for alcohol
Portion in Colorado’s rate base: $1,008
$6,698
Trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland for Xcel’s vice president and his wife
Portion in Colorado’s rate base: $1,173
$41,890
A board-of-directors retreat at the St. Julien Hotel and Spa in Boulder
Portion in Colorado’s rate base: $9,524
$40,374
Private car travel for company directors and executives
Portion in Colorado’s rate base: $9,296
Sources: Xcel Energy, Minnesota attorney general’s office
