JEA here in Jacksonville has been screwing up prorations for months. My client's restaurant got billed for a 19-day period at full monthly rates - no proration whatsoever. The bill was $3,200 for 19 days when a full month averages $4,800. Customer service keeps saying their system "automatically prorates" but clearly it doesn't.
JEA proration nightmare - anyone else in Florida seeing this?
Marcus, are you looking at the demand charges specifically? A lot of utilities prorate energy but leave demand at full monthly amounts. On a restaurant account that could explain the high costs. What rate schedule are they on?
Phil - it's on GS-1 rate. You're right, the demand charges weren't prorated at all. They billed full $18.50/kW demand for 19 days. Plus the customer service fee of $18.75 wasn't prorated either. Seems like only the energy portion got adjusted.
That's standard practice unfortunately. APS here in Phoenix does the same thing - energy gets prorated, demand and fixed charges don't. Check the tariff language though, some utilities are required to prorate everything proportionally.
Checked JEA's tariff and it says "all charges shall be prorated based on the number of days in the billing period." Filed a complaint with the Florida PSC. This affects every short billing cycle they issue.
Marcus, PNM has similar language in New Mexico and we won a case on this exact issue. The key phrase is "all charges" - that means demand, customer, and energy must all be prorated. Good luck with the PSC complaint.