While all of us struggle to pay bills, higher gas prices, and higher Avista bills in this struggling economy, Avista Utilities seems to be enjoying itself. The company today reported its 2nd quarter profit for this year is 69% higher than last, and its yearly profit this year so far is 72% higher than last.
All of this, while Avista is warning customers its going to ask for another natural gas rate hike later this year. Avista says it has to ask for the hike, to pass its costs onto customers. (Avista claims in its news release its net profit was primarily due to a rate increase it got approved at the beginning of this year)
Avista says another reason for the increase this year compared with last is because Avista delt with a net loss from Avista Energy last year. The company also claims its profits could have been higher, saying it has absorbed $7,400,000 in costs so far this year.
The question is, how can Avista with a straight-face, ask for a huge natural gas increase (which it plans to do this fall), when its obviously not limping along. Don’t get me wrong, I want companies to be successful and earn a profit. But when you’re talking about nearly doubling your year-to-year profits, that’s where I draw the line. I don’t want to take money from Avista, but I also don’t want the company telling me it needs more money, when in reality, it doesn’t.
What do you think?
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Big business again . How many of our elderly will have to perish, in order for people to WAKE UP . These and the Big Oil CEO’s should be in JAIL.
Censorship KXLY?
We all have to bombard the Washington State Utility commission with protest letters and let them know that NO WAY DOES AVISTA NEED A RATE INCREASE WITH PROFITS UP 72% this year so far.
They are as big as crooks as the government, and the oil companies.
We need a good old Boston Tea Party before we are all freezing to death and going hungry!!!!!
Why should they be any different? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get bailed out, but
Fannie Mae’s chief executive and president, Daniel Mudd, received compensation last year valued at $12.2 million, including a $2.2 million bonus. Freddie Mac CEO Richard Syron received $10.5 million last year in salary, stock, options and bonuses.
Bonuses for what?! Unprecedented incompetence and negligence?
It’s SOP in the corporate world. Since when do profits become an advantage for consumers, as with Avista? Since when are CEOs held accountable for bad business results? Rarely. And we average citizens are the ones who end up paying the price and penalty.
I don’t understand why Avista thinks they need more money. I’m sure that all of us retired folks would like more money, too. Oh yes, we get COLA once a year and that raise and then some goes to pay Medicare raises. When will it stop? I know there are elderly people that sit in cold houses because they cannot afford to heat them. And they probably sit in the dark, too. ENOUGH ALREADY!!!
Well no matter what the society says prices will rise and rise…it keeps getting worse…I’m just waiting for the recession.
do the cops know that neil had a car? i have known neil for a while and he had a nice ass car
Yeah it’s the same old B.S. the rich get richer and the poor go hungry. Does anyone out there realize that this economy hurts ONLY poor. Retired or not. I’m retired and my FIXED income is $594.00 a month!. Yeah let me see you big shot corporates try and live on that. I’ve worked in this country since I was 12, yeah born and raised here but now I’m a minority and my s.s. went to the “other” people. Avista wants more money?
Aw too bad they cant get by on 72% profit. Neither can the “C.E.O’s” get on on eight or ten million dollars. Ha. When this is all over, can they stand up in front of their Maker and answer “How did you love”?..
Did anyone read the notice that came with your utility bill last month? It says Avista is going back to court to ask for a reduction on the credit it was ordered to pay us back.
seems they can nickel and dime us to death why not power and natural gas?
Does Avista think that we are all stupid? They made a statement about their stockholders and their responsibility to them to provide dividends…great, but at what cost to those who are doing the work to pay for those dividends? Operating costs? How do you explain a 72% profit and don’t go telling us that that 72% is going back into the company. Exxon tried that…
The first thing Avista did when it took over was to get all new vehicles, give big raises, and ask for rate increases. They have been at it ever since. We should fire them. Washington Water Power wasn’t that bad. Some Democracy we have
It is hard to believe that Avista can operate in this city carte blanc! Are you listening Mayor Vernor? Want to know why you will get no voter approvals for your city? Avista has sucked the citizens dry and coincidently we are in a RECESSION!
It is time to write, call and protest to the WA Utilities Commission to stop their rubber stamp approvals for Avista’s constant increases. Also, contact the WA Attorney Generals office who is currently investigating Avista. Who in this city has had 22 pay increases since 2001? What business in this city has a 72% profit so far this year? What has $421 million plus dollars in increases since 2001 done for us except make us freeze in our homes and make choices no one should have to make! Look closely at your January and February bills and note how they changed the method of billing due to increases. Normally, it is billed for the first 600 KWH hours at the lowest rate, then 601 to1300 KWH hours at the next rate., etc. These two months due to yet more increases allow them to discriminately change the hours. By breaking the hours down into much smaller KWH usage allowed them to charge many more hours at higher rates. Six rates used on each of these months bills.
As for the Avista spokeswoman I assume your compensation level is extremely high
as you are the token female guinea pig in place for this unethical company!
If you are an investor in this greedy destructive company SHAME ON YOU …
May judgement day find you warm and toasty directly south of heaven!
It seems to me there should be some sort of legal avenue for all of this. If you can sue for injuries/medical expenses that happened while you were in someone’s house stealing their things, there has to be a way to bring Avista to the carpet for their actions. And with a cattle call to all of the blogs and craigslist discussions regarding Avista, some lawyer would stand to make quite a name for him self in a lawsuit with so many people willing to pull out their Avista bills and add themselves to the list of people being abused by Avista’s greed. You can’t tell me that I can sue McDonald’s for making the coffee I spilled on myself, but there’s no way to make a utility company charge me less than what i pay in rent.
I agree that Avista’s rates seem a bit high compared to other pwr company’s in the area. However, allow me to take the other side for purpose of debate. As with most things, it’s often hard to get an accurate reflection of a situation by looking at a relatively small timeframe. A qtr vs. qtr or even yr vs. yr comparison can be misleading due to the occasional big accounting items that can blur the picture one way or the other.
If you look at Avista’s income statements for fiscal yrs 06′, 07′, & 08′ you’ll see the following (I hope my chart appears correctly but not being able to preview it makes it a gamble):
(Numbers in 1,000’s) 06′ 07′ 08′
Total Revenue 1,506,311 1,417,757 1,676,763
Cost of Revenue 895,783 849,674 1,327,163
Gross Profit 610,528 568,083 349,600
Net Income 73,133 38,475 73,620
Quite honestly, you need to go deeper into the earnings report to discover exactly what causes all the variances that often occur but these numbers show you the gyrations that can take place in the business cycle. For example, their “gross profit” went down from 06′ to 07′ and again, even more dramatically, from 07′ to 08′ (due primarily to a lg increase in the cost of revenue line as a percentage of total revenue).
Just like with your paychecks, the gross number isn’t as important as the “net” figure that accounts for various things taken from your pay (like taxes, union dues, insurance, etc). In business, “net” also accounts for things like interest, depreciation & amortization.
Avista’s “net income” shows a substantial drop of 47% from 06′ to 07′ (typically caused by an extraordinary event). That dramatic drop made the 07′ to 08′ comparison “appear” as though there was a huge jump of 91% in net income. However, if you compare it from 06′ to 08′ you see a much smaller change in net income of 0.67% (less than 1%).
This post was purely irt the earnings aspect of this thread. As I said in other blogs: I believe most of the unusually high bills this past winter were mistakes due to a combination of estimated readings, longer billing periods, and/or possible software errors. I’d have to see the bills to make a better determination though. Avista’s rate charges (per kWh) are higher than other pwr companies around Spokane. I don’t know for sure how they compare to other areas around the country that use “hydraulic pwr.” I do know that coal and nuke pwr rates will always be higher than hydraulic pwr so you can’t compare 2 areas with different pwr sources…
I agree that Avista’s rates seem a bit high compared to other pwr company’s in the area. However, allow me to take the other side for purpose of debate. As with most things, it’s often hard to get an accurate reflection of a situation by looking at a relatively small timeframe. A qtr vs. qtr or even yr vs. yr comparison can be misleading due to the occasional big accounting items that can blur the picture one way or the other.
If you look at Avista’s income statements for fiscal yrs 06′, 07′, & 08′ you’ll see the following (I hope my chart appears correctly but not being able to preview it makes it a gamble):
(Numbers in 1,000’s)—————06′——————–07′——————-08′
Total Revenue——————1,506,311————1,417,757———-1,676,763
Cost of Revenue——————895,783————–849,674———-1,327,163
Gross Profit————————610,528————–568,083————349,600
Net Income————————–73,133—————38,475————–73,620
Quite honestly, you need to go deeper into the earnings report to discover exactly what causes all the variances that often occur but these numbers show you the gyrations that can take place in the business cycle. For example, their “gross profit” went down from 06′ to 07′ and again, even more dramatically, from 07′ to 08′ (due primarily to a lg increase in the cost of revenue line as a percentage of total revenue).
However, Just like with your paychecks, the gross number isn’t as important as the “net” figure that accounts for various things taken from your pay (like taxes, union dues, insurance, etc). In business, “net” also accounts for things like interest, depreciation & amortization.
Avista’s “net income” shows a substantial drop of 47% from 06′ to 07′ (typically caused by an extraordinary event). That dramatic drop made the 07′ to 08′ comparison “appear” as though there was a huge jump of 91% in net income. However, if you compare it from 06′ to 08′ you see a much smaller change in net income of 0.67% (less than 1%).
This post was purely irt the earnings aspect of this thread. As I said in other blogs: I believe most of the unusually high bills this past winter were mistakes due to a combination of estimated readings, longer billing periods, and/or possible software errors. I’d have to see the bills to make a better determination though. Avista’s rate charges (per kWh) are higher than other pwr companies around Spokane. I don’t know for sure how they compare to other areas around the country that use “hydraulic pwr” but I do know that coal and nuke pwr rates will always be higher than hydraulic pwr so you can’t compare 2 areas with different pwr sources…
March 25, 2009 Scott Morris,
Avista Corp.’s chairman, president and chief executive officer, earned $2.2 million in total compensation last year, the utility reported Tuesday. Morris was promoted to Avista’s top executive on .
Morris was previously president and chief operating officer of Avista Utilities, the firm’s state-regulated utility business. He earned $1.1 million in that position in 2007.
They doubled his salarie and increased our rates 4xs…Causing sufferage!
Why Is this allowed to continue? What can we do to stop this Avista ripoff?
They give away millions and charge us more… always stating that they need more
equipment…What they need is a REAL investigation by the State and Feds!
What they need is the people of Spokane and their representatives
to STOP THEM!
I’M A EARLY FORCED RETIRED DISABLED PERSON. I’VE GOT A TERMINAL HEART CONDITION WHICH I WOULDN’T EVEN SURVIVE A HEART TRANSPLANT. WITH A MONTHLY INCOME OF 694.00 A MONTH. IT’S ALL I CAN DO TO TAKE CARE OF HOMEOWNER OBLIGATIONS, TAKE CARE OF NEEDS, AND STRETCH THE HECK OF WHAT MONEY IS LEFT FOR MY FOOD. I DO NOT QUALIFY FOR FOOD STAMPS SINCE MY ADULT DAUGHTERS LIVE WITH ME TO HELP WITH THE PHYSICAL THINGS THAT NEED DONE. I PRAY, AND WISH THE MONOPOLY BUSINESSES IN THIS TOWN NEED TO GIVE US ALL A BREAK. A ONE TIME REBATE WOULD BE A NICE PEACE OFFERING FOR THE CONSTANT DEMANDS THEY PLACE UPON WE WHO STRUGGLE. BLESS THEM ANYWAY.
Does anyone remember WWP? This stood for WASHINGTON water power. Well, I remember being 10 or so years old and listening to the radio while riding in the back of my mothers datsun station wagon eastbound on I-90 heading downtown from the airport. The radio dj was informing his listeners WWP was planning to sell our cities natural resources to “california”. I immediatly wonderd who would benifit from my cities natuaral resources being sold to california. The selling point back then was, with californias drought they would need our resources, and if we were to come into trouble california would help us out. Unfortunatly this is called energy trading, selling electricity at market values. It wasn’t until 2001 when ENRON failed I corrilated our part in the scandal. Avista/wwp will always be the enemy in my eyes no matter how they slice it.
Here we are again, like most years. Avista getting record profits and we sit in the dark during a snow storm. They have hundreds of trucks sitting completely outfitted to fix downed power lines.
If they would spend half of their profits burying the power lines that have gone down over the past 5 years, eventually all the lines would be safe from above.
I am sure we will hear about how much that costs compared to wire on a pole and how last year someone dug up a power line.
I suspect they have an agreement in their union contracts that prohibit them from this fix.