Lafayette faces existential challenges that, mishandled, could derail it for a generation.
LUS
LUS rate reduction and refund shelved
The gist: The LPUA deferred indefinitely a pair of proposals to reduce utility rates and return money raised for a $240 million bond sale that never happened.
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1 min read
Some background. Rates were raised 8 percent beginning in 2016 with a $240 million bond issuance in mind. That package included a controversial power plant, and after some pushback, the bond ask was reduced to $70 million in February 2018. At the last minute — literally the day of the bond commission meeting in April — Robideaux pulled the $70 million bond request, orphaning the rates. That was days before he signed a letter of intent with NextGEN Utility Systems to consider privatizing manage of LUS. Settling the issue was delayed during the ensuing controversy.
LUS says the money has been put to good use. In a bond scenario, the money raised would go to pay the interest on the bond. Since there’s no bond, LUS has essentially used the money on a pay-as-you-go basis, moving forward on projects included in the $70 million package. Some major projects include $48 million for electric system upgrades and $41 million in sewer treatment work. Interim LUS Director Jeff Stewart tells me about $15 million was diverted to those work orders.
“The last thing I want to do is scale back a rate and then come back to raise the rate to meet unexpected needs,” Councilman Bruce Conque says.
Word is bond. Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux, who authored the ordinances, argues that good use doesn’t matter. The money was raised for bonds, and the ratepayers should expect that the money be used for that purpose. “I personally believe we have misled the people, and we’re gaining from it,” he said at the council meeting Tuesday night.
LUS disconnects 1,900 customers each month for delinquent payment. Boudreaux brought that figure forward to warn that even a small rate increase can have dramatic effects on low-income families.
“We boast about how good our rates are, but we still have a large population that struggles to pay those rates each month,” Boudreaux tells me.
What to watch for: If and when a bond is ultimately issued. The administration intends to go forward with a $70 million bond sale, now that the NextGEN episode is over. With cash in hand, LUS can continue ongoing projects but can’t necessarily complete them without the added capital.
LPUA will take up lowering LUS rates
The gist: Utility rates were hiked in the last two years to pay for rising operating costs and a $240 million bond package that never came to be. On Tuesday, Councilman Kenneth Boudreaux will present a pair of ordinances, one to reduce electric, water and wastewater rates and another to reclaim the revenues for a bond sale.
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1 min read
NextGEN Utility Systems put a spotlight on the rates by promising to lower them for three years. In council discussions over the course of the affair, council members Kenneth Boudreaux and Bruce Conque questioned whether the rates could be lowered, given the bonds were never issued. The idea is that the rates were raised unnecessarily, and thus some value ought to be returned to LUS customers.
Conque says he would support reductions on electric rates only.
Why were rates raised in the first place? In 2016, LUS sought — and received — approval to apply for $240 million in bonds to build a new power generating plant and other pricey capital improvements. Rates were raised 8 percent to finance the debt, but the LPUA, hearing pushback on plans for the new power plant, decided on a phase-in compromise and reduced the authorized amount to $70 million in February 2018. Mayor-President Joel Robideaux has said that event prompted him to reignite talks with Bernhard Capital Partners/NextGEN Utility Systems, despite that discussions had begun in 2016 and never stopped. In April, Robideaux pulled the bond request from the state bond commission agenda the day it was set to be heard, effectively orphaning the rate increase.
Boudreaux says the money ought to finance bonds, given that was the principle justification for raising it.
“We’re in essence taxing ratepayers,” Boudreaux tells me.
OK. Give me my money back. Hold on to your receipt, ratepayer. It’s more complicated than that. LUS interim Director Jeff Stewart says that while plans for the generating plant were shelved, the system needed the funds to rightsize revenue for the water and wastewater systems, and to finance about $100 million in other capital improvements:
- $48 million in electric system upgrades, including LED streetlights ($7M) and a new substation ($14M)
- $41 million in wastewater, including expansion of a sewer plant ($26M)
- $6.5 million in water system projects
These projects were included in the February resolution authorizing LUS to sell bonds. LUS faces flatlining electric revenue growth as customers use less energy and will spend millions to upgrade sewer capacity in Lafayette’s urban core and on an EPA mandated,10-year review and repair of the rest of its wastewater system. Stewart tells me reducing the rates is possible but requires a thorough review.
“The opportunity may exist, but we haven’t fully evaluated those options yet,” he says.
What to watch for: How else the NextGEN affair impacts decision-making around LUS. If there’s a silver lining in the acrimony that erupted over the privatization scheme, it’s that LUS has taken center stage in civic conversation. Major changes are already in play. LUS is set to cleave off Fiber, and both systems will need new directors. NextGEN’s proposal introduced into the public lexicon plenty of new concepts around energy and raised awareness about the disruptions LUS faces going forward.
LUS/NextGEN affair could haunt Robideaux in his 2019 re-election bid
Challengers are already mulling 2019. LUS could be the platform they need.
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9 min read
What’s next after NextGEN
On Monday, NextGen withdrew their offer to manage LUS hours before the Council voted against considering any deal like it. So now what?
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6 min read
NextGEN withdraws proposal hours ahead of big council votes
The decision was made “in response” to the ongoing discussions of the company’s proposal and the “importance” of the city’s decision whether to accept it.
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4 min read
NextGEN sets up headquarters Downtown in campaign to court Lafayette on LUS deal
The gist: Swimming upstream of public opinion, the firm making a play to manage LUS is widening the reach of its pitch. Bernhard Capital Partners/NextGEN Utility Systems hung up a banner, so-to-speak, with a temporary outreach center in Downtown Lafayette.
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1 min read
The outreach center puts boots on the ground for a growing PR campaign. This week, NextGEN also created a Facebook page and launched a phone campaign to go along with its digital billboards billing a $1.3 billion offer. Talking points from the phone campaign emphasize the $140 million in up front cash included in the deal, rate reductions and the company’s intention to site its headquarters in Lafayette. NextGEN is renting space in the Omni Center on Jefferson Street for the next two and half weeks, according to Omni Center owner Robert Guercio.
Could environmental progressives be a base of support? In a phone interview, Guercio, a Downtown entrepreneur and sustainability advocate affiliated with Bayou Electric Vehicles, bubbled with enthusiasm about the possibilities NextGEN offers, particularly in modernizing LUS. Guercio said he fought LUS for two years to get LED lighting Downtown and that the utility dragged its feet on renewable energy.
“Why is it so hard for us to do innovative things? Government is kind of clunky sometimes,” Guercio said. “This is their [NextGEN's] specialty. We’re in business to rent the facility, but I’m also supportive of an effort to modernize LUS.”
LUS announced a $7 million LED streetlight program in 2017. The city owns its 18,000 streetlights, and the Public Works Department pays LUS for electricity and maintenance (replacing bulbs and poles, etc.). In what could be argued was an innovative approach, LUS agreed to fund the program up front because Public Works could not afford to do so. Because LEDs are cheaper to run than the city's existing lamps, LUS will continue to charge Public Works the contract price for the more expensive conventional lighting until it recoups its $7 million investment.
Bayou Electric Vehicles team has twice unsuccessfully sought funding for Lafayette's first EV charging station via local pitch competition 24 Hour Citizen Project. Jeff LeBlanc, who made the pitch at the event this year, said that NextGEN will give $3,000 to an upcoming fundraiser, enough for BEV to finally get Lafayette's first EV charging station placed in front of The Wurst Biergarten on Jefferson St., another Guercio-owned operation.
LeBlanc said BEV's sole issue is proliferating electric vehicle infrastructure in Lafayette, and it won't be making any sort of formal statement on third party management of LUS. Speaking for himself, LeBlanc said he's skeptical of the terms of NextGEN's proposal, particularly the 40-year contract, though he shares some of Guercio's frustration.
"LUS had every opportunity to get [Lafayette's first EV charger] this done over the past two years," he said.
NextGEN’s critiques of LUS echo others from renewable energy advocates. And that could be why the company might find common ground there.
Who, what, when and how. It’s really unclear what NextGEN’s path to success is. Even if it successfully courts progressives, who else will carry water for the controversial proposal is yet to be seen. Mayor-President Joel Robideaux took an earful for suggesting that public opposition is uninformed, yet he has not voiced dedicated support for an offer he courted. What details a potential contract would include, beyond the exchange of money, are yet to be seen. When and how this moves past the hot air stage, either by vote of the public, vote of the council or a contract with the administration, is unknown.
What to watch for: Whether any part of Lafayette’s political class joins the campaign. Given the toxicity of the topic from the time NextGEN’s communications with the administration were revealed, there’s been no local political capital spent promoting it, outside of the mayor-president’s call to explore options.
Robideaux says the public doesn’t have all the facts on the NextGEN/LUS deal. He’s not helping.
If the public doesn’t have all the facts, it’s in part because he’s not providing them. The bottom line is Robideaux’s account raises some red flags. Here are a few of the big ones.
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8 min read
The civil service snag in NextGEN’s proposal
The gist: At last week’s presentation to the Lafayette Public Utilities Authority, NextGEN officials indicated with confidence that LUS’s hundreds of employees need not worry about their civil service protection if NextGEN takes over management of the public utility.
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1 min read
“We don’t have any specific intention to replace civil service employees with non-civil service employees,” said Jeff Baudier, who joined NextGEN’s parent company, Bernhard Capital Partners, in April after almost two years with CLECO.
And to make the company’s position perfectly clear, BCP founder Jim Bernhard chimed in: “We don’t want to weasel around it that the civil service employees that do their functions today will remain. And with some attrition we’ll hire another civil service employee. That’s not going to change. It’s not our intent. It’s what we’re committed to.”
Not so fast, says Adam Marcantel, municipal civil service director. “From what I’ve seen, it’s just not going to be permissible,” he says of continued civil service protection, like job security and equitable pay, for LUS employees under the proposed management contract with NextGEN. “That’s not to say a way doesn’t exist out there that I haven’t considered or thought of. But from what I’ve looked at and the ideas I’ve tossed around in my mind in trying to figure out how can we make this work, I don’t see that there’s going to be a resolution as long as the management structure is that the [civil service] employees would answer to an employee of NextGEN.”
Marcantel says civil service employees are able to perform their duties without political pressure. “Civil service positions exist to serve Lafayette Consolidated Government and by extension serve the public. That’s what we do, and that’s why we enjoy the protections that we have,” he explains. “To have civil service employees serving the interests of a private company is not compatible with that.”
What’s next? Marcantel plans to attend Tuesday’s council meeting, where NextGEN will again make its pitch — though email records show that Councilman Jared Bellard asked that the company cut the lengthy presentation it made before the LPUA to a summary of 20 minutes or less. Marcantel is prepared to explain his position to the council.
If the NextGEN proposal moves forward, the director says the municipal civil service board would get involved and likely seek a legal opinion from its attorney, George Armbruster. “I’m waiting to see what happens,” Marcantel says.
File this in the “curious” category: The retention of civil service classification doesn’t appear in NextGEN’s 35-page proposal to manage LUS, a deal that would give LCG $140 million in cash and relieve $184 million in LUS debt, along with providing $920 million in continued in-lieu-of-tax payments and up to $64 million in conditional payouts.
I emailed Baudier late Monday afternoon for clarification on this issue and haven’t heard back.
NextGEN’s offer by the numbers
What’s Jim Bernhard’s bid to run LUS really worth?
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11 min read
Entergy wants a shot at LUS
Robideaux said through his spokeswoman that conversations with Entergy have continued intermittently since at least June of this year.
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2 min read
New year, new directors to come for Fiber and LUS
The gist: Fiber and LUS have been formally split since the budget was adopted last year, but the search for new directors to run the now independent agencies was punted until the NextGEN affair was resolved.
Mayor-President Joel Robideaux intends to fill four vacant director positions this year. Fiber and LUS directorships have been vacant since the fall, when the council approved reorganizing Fiber into its own department. It’s an election year, which could complicate the job search, and Robideaux has been slow to fill other director level positions. LCG also currently has interim directors running the IT and planning departments. LCG Communications Director Cydra Wingerter says the search for an new IT director is starting this week.
Some background: LUS Fiber was created as a division of LUS, not a separate department of LCG. The two shared a director — until mid-last year, longtime LUS Director Terry Huval, one of Fiber’s founders — and shared some administrative staff. As Fiber’s operations have gotten off the ground, it’s built out its own support team. After the split, Fiber became its own department, not unlike public works or planning, and is separate from LUS. Since Huval retired last year, it’s been overseen by Interim Fiber Director Teles Fremin. Jeff Stewart serves as interim utilities director.
OK, so what difference does that make? Many have argued that Fiber has long needed its own dedicated director. The thinking is, it’s a $40 million a year operation that needs full-time attention to grow. That was Robideaux’s rationale when he proposed the split last year, and the council has come on board.
Fiber and LUS are financially intertwined, but the split shouldn’t change that. Fiber owes LUS $28 million for loans fronted by LUS in the system’s early days. Fiber has paid virtually only interest on that debt, but is scheduled to make big payments in the next few years, starting with a $1.5 million payment in 2019. Also, Fiber owes $110 million on bonds that are backstopped by LUS. In other words, if Fiber defaults on its bonds, LUS would be on the hook. Robideaux assured the council that LCG is ultimately responsible for Fiber’s debts, and nothing about the split changes the obligations.
Speaking of the council, the new city council will oversee Fiber once the charter amendments take effect in 2020. There was some question at Tuesday’s council meeting whether the split would swap out regulators. LUS is regulated by the Lafayette Public Utilities Authority, a council subset made up of the five city-majority council members. Establishing a city council negates the need for an extra body. Insofar as the LPUA governed LUS, Fiber was under its purview. But, by state law, Fiber is audited by the state’s Public Service Commission. The PSC, for instance, is reviewing the $1.8 million Fiber billed LUS for service to sewer lift stations that were hooked up but never turned on.
What to watch for: Salaries for the new fiber and utilities directors. Last year, council members Bruce Conque, now LPUA chair, and Kenneth Boudreaux argued Robideaux set the salaries too low: $150,000 for the utilities director and $115,000 for the Fiber director. Qualifications and salary for the utilities director will be set in consultation with LUS’s consultant of record, NewGen Strategies and Solutions (no relationship to NextGEN). But the Fiber director’s salary is up to the administration, subject to approval of the city-parish council this year and the city council in the future. Wingerter tells me the $100,000 salary is not set in stone and could rise depending on candidate interest.